In memoriam Erving Goffman

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the memory of Erving Goffman. This is both an outline of his intellectual biography and an attempt to apply the technique of the frame-analysis he proposed to the understanding of the nature of scientific communication (including the episodes of scientific communication Goffman himself was a part of). Along with historical-theoretical issues the article raises the questions of the analytical character itself: how do the “biographical” and “theoretical” frames combine? How do biographers create the visibility of the connection of the author’s research and “the unique features of his personality”? Under what rules and what communicative frames is the “production” of classic organized?