Life as Theater: A Dramaturgical Sourcebook

by Charles Edgley (Editor)

Life as Theater is about understanding people and how the dramaturgical way of thinking helps or hinders such understanding. A volume that has deservedly attained the status of a landmark work, this was the first book to explore systematically the material and subject matter of social psychology from the dramaturgical viewpoint. It has been widely used and quoted, and has sparked ferment and debate in fields as diverse as sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science, speech communication, and formal theater studies.Life as Theater is organized around five substantive issues in social Social Relationships as Drama; The Dramaturgical Self; Motivation and Drama; Organizational Dramas; and Political Dramas. This classic text was revised and updated for a second edition in 1990, and includes approximately 66 percent new materials, all featuring individual introductions that provide the dramaturgical perspective and reflect the most learned thinking and work being done within this point of view. This book's sophistication will appeal to the scholar, and its clarity and conciseness to the student. Like its predecessor, it is designed to serve as a primary text or supplementary reader in classes. This new paperback edition includes an introduction by Robert A. Stebbins that explains why, even fifteen years after its publication,Life as Theater remains the best single sourcebook on the dramaturgic perspective as applied in the social sciences.

482 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh lord, social psychology is a wild place. Did it make it past the 70s? I want to know! I want to know if it helps us understand ourselves at all, to think in terms of roles and scripts. (It used to be much easier to think in these ways; oh how temporary are our metaphors about ourselves!)

I came here to read an essay by Erving Goffman and instead read about him -- his scallywag ways and now I see him as much more complicated a scholar.
I think that may go for all of social psychology.

I came here, too, hoping to discover a fresh way of thinking about narrative, and how we might present our story of the people in a small town, working for and against each other. (I don't think the town is cohesive enough to feel like a stage. Or -- I dunno. Maybe it doesn't work because it doesn't make sense. The town is simply NOT a stage. It is far too complicated. Maybe we all are over here in 2024.)

The bits I read about how we don't have a good way of talking about the "progression" of human behavior and society hit the nail: we use all these borrowed theories from science and hope they'll do. (Pneumatics! I'm embarrassed to notice they linger in me as a way of explaining myself, "all bottled up" and "just gotta release some steam.")

[Dirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of essays related to the dramaturgical approach to analysing social relationships. Must read, I'd say