Sociology & Criminology for a Changing World
With his work Cultural Criminology and the Carnival of Crime (2000), Mike Presdee established a radical perspective within Cultural Criminology. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnival theory, Presdee interprets crime not just as a rule violation but as a cultural expression—a subversive ritual, symbolic protest, and form of resistance against social control. Having worked as both
Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates by Erving Goffman is one of the most influential sociological works of the 20th century. Originally published in 1961, the book presents a powerful analysis of psychiatric hospitals and similar institutions, which Goffman defines as total institutions. These settings, according to Goffman, profoundly
Being Mentally Ill by Thomas J. Scheff is considered a key contribution to labelling theory and the sociology of mental deviance. Building on the theoretical insights of Howard S. Becker and Erving Goffman, Scheff argues that “mental illness” is not (only) a biologically or medically defined condition, but is significantly shaped by social processes of
Goffman’s Perspective: From Visible Deviance to Social Exclusion In Stigma, Erving Goffman explores the mechanisms by which societies mark individuals whose appearance, behavior, or background is considered deviant from social norms. A stigma is not an inherent attribute, but rather a social judgment that is ascribed to a person. Physical stigmas (e.g., visible disabilities) Character-related
With The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956), the Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman published one of the most influential works of modern microsociology. The book established Goffman’s reputation as a pioneer of interaction analysis and remains a foundational text of Symbolic Interactionism. In his central thesis, Goffman describes social life as a kind of
With his work Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method (1969), Herbert Blumer laid the theoretical and methodological foundation of symbolic interactionism. As a student of George Herbert Mead, he not only coined the term for this school of thought but also shaped one of the most influential microsociological theories of the 20th century. Blumer’s approach places