Easy Rider

About the Book

A child/adolescent/youth's roller coaster ride through the South in the thirties and forties. As an adult, finding a mate and a calling. Passages about being girl crazy, work life as a soldier, physicist, sociologist, marriage counselor, and finally as a social psychologist and anti-war activist. Poetry about failure at mediating, a Bugattie car that sells for 1.7 million, King Lear in the streets of Los Angeles, how the author finally stopped having a painful recurring dream, how poetry feels, and many other topics. Non-technical essays on two popular films, emotional responses to a war memorial, how to actually get an education in college, rather than just going through the motions, and other topics.

About the Author

Thomas J. Scheff is Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara. His last book was Goffman Unbound, Paradigm Publishers, 2006. He is former Chair, Sociology of Emotions, American Sociological Association, and former President, Pacific Sociological Association. His main fields of research are social psychology, emotions, and large-scale conflict.