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OG Kush. Sour Diesel. Wax, shatter, and vapes. Marijuana has come a long way since its seedy days in the back parking lots of our culture. So has Howard S. Becker, the eminent sociologist, jazz musician, expert on "deviant" culture, and founding NORML board member. When he published Becoming a... More

In 1963, Howard S. Becker gave a lecture about deviance, challenging the then-conventional definition that deviance was inherently criminal and abnormal and arguing that instead, deviance was better understood as a function of labeling. At the end of his lecture, a distinguished colleague standing... More

This sociological text on deviance and difference provides an exploration into unconventional individuals and their place in "normal" society.... More

Based on three years of detailed anthropological observation, this account of undergraduate culture portrays students' academic relations to faculty and administration as one of subjection. With rare intervals in crisis moments, student life has always been dominated by grades and grade point averag... More

This classic sociological examination of art as collective action explores the cooperative network of suppliers, performers, dealers, critics, and consumers who - along with the artist - "produce" a work of art. Howard S. Becker looks at the conventions essential to this operation and, prospectively... More

For more than thirty years, Writing for Social Scientists has been a lifeboat for writers in all fields, from beginning students to published authors. It starts with a powerful reassurance: Academic writing is stressful, and even accomplished scholars like sociologist Howard S. Becker struggle with ... More

Howard S. Becker is a master of his discipline. His reputation as a teacher, as well as a sociologist, is supported by his best-selling quartet of sociological guidebooks: Writing for Social Scientists, Tricks of the Trade, Telling About Society, and What About Mozart? What About Murder? It turns ou... More

A National Jewish Book Award Finalist. A comprehensive social history of Jewish contributions to American popular music in the 20th century. Musician-journalist-producer-author Ben Sidran uses his first person experience to frame the story behind the story of Jews in American popular music. The book... More

The concept of the case is a basic feature of social science research and yet many questions about how a case should be defined, how cases should be selected and what the criteria are for a good case or set of cases are far from settled. Are cases pre-existing phenomena that need only be identified... More

Every night, somewhere in the world, three or four musicians will climb on stage together. Whether the gig is at a jazz club, a bar, or a bar mitzvah, the performance never begins with a note, but with a question. The trumpet player might turn to the bassist and ask, "Do you know 'Body and Soul'?"... More

Those same authorities leave them to run such aspects of their private lives as friendships and dating as they wish. But, when it comes to academic matters, students are subject to the decisions of college faculties and administrators.Becker deals with this continuing lack of autonomy in student lif... More

Faulkner and Becker, sociologists and experienced musicians, wrote a book about their musical experiences--Do You Know? The Jazz Repertoire in Action--describing how musicians who didn't know each other could perform competently and interestingly without rehearsing, or playing from written music. Wh... More

Symbolic interactionism, resolutely empirical in practice, shares theoretical concerns with cultural studies and humanistic discourse. Recognizing that the humanities have engaged many of the important intellectual currents of the last twenty-five years in ways that sociology has not, the contributo... More

Symbolic interactionism, resolutely empirical in practice, shares theoretical concerns with cultural studies and humanistic discourse. Recognizing that the humanities have engaged many of the important intellectual currents of the last twenty-five years in ways that sociology has not, the contributo... More

Everett C. Hughes had a great impact on the field of sociology as a whole and on an entire generation of sociologists. Some of Hughes' former students and colleagues honor him in this book. The essays address the main themes in his work over the years, and illustrate as well Hughes' impact on the co... More