Books and Courses, Thought Makers

Reading & Learning

Books and coursework that shaped how I think about institutions, power, meaning, and behavior.

Books I’ve Read

• Asylums — Erving Goffman
  Institutions as worlds with rules that reshape identity.
• The Sociological Imagination — C. Wright Mills
  Private trouble ↔ public issue: linking biography to structure.
• The Power Elite — C. Wright Mills
  How power concentrates, circulates, and protects itself.
• On Suicide — Émile Durkheim
  Social integration and regulation shape individual outcomes.

Books Recommended to Read

These are next on my list—recommended because they fit the themes I keep returning to: identity under pressure, role loss, stigma, power, repair, and rebuilding.

Identity & Institutions

• Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity — Erving Goffman
  How labels stick, how reputation works, and how people navigate social judgment after a fall.
• The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life — Erving Goffman
  A practical lens on roles, masks, “front stage/back stage,” and how we manage impressions to survive.
• Becoming an Ex: The Process of Role Exit — Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh
  A clean framework for what happens when a role ends and you have to rebuild identity after the exit.
• The Managed Heart — Arlie Russell Hochschild
  Emotional labor, control, and the hidden cost of “being fine” while doing hard work under pressure.
• Man’s Search for Meaning — Viktor E. Frankl
  Meaning as a survival tool—especially when the old story collapses and the new one hasn’t formed yet.

Communication & Repair

• Self-Compassion — Kristin Neff
  A direct antidote to shame-ledger thinking: how to stay accountable without self-erasure.
• Nonviolent Communication — Marshall B. Rosenberg
  Tools for conflict, boundaries, and asking for what you need without escalation.
• Crucial Conversations — Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, & Al Switzler
  Tools for high-stakes conversations when emotion is high and the consequences are real.

Courses I’ve Taken

• Communication and Conflict Management — Algonquin College
  Current study.
• Introduction to Criminology — Algonquin College
  Crime, enforcement, and the social context behind rules.
• Abnormal Psychology — Algonquin College
  Diagnosis, distress, and the line between “normal” and “pathologized.”
• Introduction to Psychology — Algonquin College
  Perception, cognition, behavior—how people make meaning and act.
• Introduction to Sociology — Algonquin College
  Institutions, roles, and the systems that shape everyday life.

Why this matters: These works and courses give me a framework for reading power, institutions, and human behavior—especially in moments when life breaks and you have to rebuild with clarity.