Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity

Drawing extensively on autobiographies and case studies, sociologist Erving Goffman analyzes the stigmatized person's feelings about himself and his relationship to "normals." He explores the variety of strategies stigmatized individuals employ to deal with the rejection of others, the complex sorts of information about themselves they project. In Stigma the interplay of alternatives the stigmatized individual must face every day is brilliantly examined by one of America's leading social analysts.