Goffman's Interest in Spies and Espionage: The University of Chicago Context

Abstract

Erving Goffman's interest in spies and espionage is widely recognized in commentary on his work. Where did this interest come from? While the context of Cold War America provided the broad cultural horizon of this work, deeper roots may be found. Goffman's contact with two University of Chicago professors, Edward A. Shils and Douglas Waples, both of whom served in U.S. intelligence organizations during World War II, also shaped Goffman's interest in the subject. This paper explores these relationships and their connection to Goffman's writings on spies, secrecy, and information control in postwar America. Goffman's view of spies and espionage as analogues to American postwar lives is explored.

Erving Goffman on Misinformation and Information Control: The Conduct of Contemporary Russian Information Operations

“…This tendency notwithstanding, and in what is a hitherto neglected facet of his writing, the concept of “information control” was a central concern for him. As Jaworski (2021) contends, viewed through the prism of the interaction order, “information control” is intrinsic to the stream of deceptions, counter‐deceptions, and the risks of being discredited that individuals and institutions continually seek to navigate and negotiate as they engage with one another. Indeed, it features in all four of the major publications Goffman issued in the early part of his career.…”

“…In developing these themes, for illustrative purposes, he attends in particular to the work of intelligence and espionage (Jaworski 2021). It is pertinent that this analysis appears within the collection of essays entitled Strategic Interaction , where Goffman's cross‐cutting interest was in detailing how the conduct of interaction can be goal‐oriented—undertaken with a deliberate and deeper purpose, and not just a series of reactions to local stimuli.…”

On loyalty and betrayal in postwar social science, mainly in Chicago

“…These and other decisions of his presidency helped to create the range of problems-secrecy, aggression, loyalty, and subversion-on which Goffman would work and even at times the language with which he would write about it (e.g. Jaworski, 2021). Take a look at Goffman's early work and one sees a wide cast of Cold War characters: conspirators, spies, interrogators, informers, eves-droppers, colluders, traitors, communists, conscientious objectors, and more.…”