Erving Goffman at 100: A Chameleon Seen as a Rorschach Test within a Kaleidoscope

The 100th anniversary of Erving Goffman's birth was in 2022. Drawing on his work, the Goffman archives, the secondary literature, and personal experiences with him and those in his university of Chicago cohort, I reflect on some implications of his work and life, and the inseparable issues of understanding society. This paper seeks to make some sense of the highly varied, often conflicting, characterizations of Goffman. He was the ultimate Rorschach test in a kaleidoscope, ever ready to be turned (or turning himself) to a different angle, which, even then, does not guarantee that observers will draw the same conclusions. I identify 14 contrasting characterizations of his work (e.g., map maker‐theorist/hypothesizer; structure functionalist‐symbolic interactionist; conservative‐liberal; outsider‐insider) and note ways of connecting, or at least making sense of, diverse perspectives. I explore two of the categories—politics and outsider‐insider—in detail and discuss an appendix on sociology of information issues involving privacy and publicity with respect to intellectual biography.