"Not then, men and their moments. Rather, moment and their men," writes Erving Goffman in the introduction to his groundbreaking 1967 Interaction Ritual, a stud

Sex, smoking, and social stratification are three very different social phenomena. And yet, argues sociologist Randall Collins, they and much else in our social

Sociologists Émile Durkheim, Erving Goffman and Randall Collins broadly suppose that ritual is foundational for social life. By contrast, this book argues that

This book is a microsociological study of religious practice, based on fieldwork with Conservative Jews, Bible Belt Muslims, white Baptists, black Baptists, Bud

The most accessible and up-to-date dictionary of its kind, this wide-ranging A-Z covers both interpersonal and mass communication, in all their myriad forms, en