Re: accounts and identity

Jon Epstein (epstein@wfu.edu)
Fri, 8 Mar 1996 15:46:15 -0500

>The call for an account for what appears to the receiver of that call as
>normal or usual conduct is a sign that the caller has a different view of
>it, or that the caller is "having some fun", or that the caller is being
>"mean-spirited", or that the caller is engaged in a Garfinkelian experiment.
> Stanford M. Lyman

We were talking about this in clas yesterday.
In one sense Garfinkels work sometimes simply
boiled down to the
refusal of a person to accept accounts.
It was an interesting discussion, and I had never really thought
of it in those terms before.

Next week is break. when we come back
we are reading:

Lyman, Stanford. Forthcoming. Postmodernism and a Sociology of
the Absurd. in Jonathon S. Epstein (shameless self promotion) . 1996.
Wilderness of Mirrors: Symbolic Interaction and the Postmodern Terrain.
Garland. NY.

Epstein, Jonathon S. and Margarete J. Epstein (not again!). 1994. Fatal
Forms: Towards a
(Neo) formal theory of Media Culture. in Douglas Kellner. Baudrillard: A
Critical Reader.
Blackwell. Cambridge.

Gottshaalk, Simon. Forthcoming. Towards an Ethnography of the Interface. In
(not again! does it never end?) Jonathon S. Epstein. Wilderness of Mirrors:
Symbolic Interaction and the Postmodern Terrain. Garland. NY.

and then on to:
Denzin, Norman. 1992. Symbolic Interactionism and Cultural Studies.
Blackwell. Cambridge. .

But first SPRING BREAK! (yea right, like I actually get a break)

Jon "Will work for tenure" Epstein

Jonathon S. Epstein "I realize
Department of Sociology I hold the key
Wake Forest University to freedom, I
Winston Salem, N.C. 27109 cannot let my
(910)-759-5447 life be ruled
epstein@wfu.edu by threads."
Rocklist@sun.soci.niu.edu Marillion