L.A. TIMES: That Goffman book: Is the next big publishing scandal about to break?

Steven Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern, has placed the issue of Goffman’s methods and veracity back on the front burner. Goffman has answered his critique in a way that leaves him “even less certain how much of the book is true.” Others, including Eugene Volokh of the Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy law blog, have taken a closer look at “On the Run,” and come away with similar doubts.

Goffman’s publishers at the University of Chicago Press and Picador, and her current employers at the University of Wisconsin, have been largely silent or dismissive about the controversy. But the book, previously regarded as a landmark in urban ethnography, may be due for a reevaluation. And that’s perilous ground. . . . Goffman may effectively have immunized herself and her book against second-guessing by cloaking all of her subjects behind pseudonyms and destroying her field notes — a step she says she took to avoid being subpoenaed for the names of subjects she witnessed in criminal activity.

Nothing suspicious about that. I’m reminded of Michael Bellesiles’ documents that were lost in a mysteriously undocumented flood.