Gary Alan Fine
Encyclopedia
Gary Alan Fine is an American
sociologist
and author.
and went to the Horace Mann School
. He studied psychology
at the University of Pennsylvania
(Phi Beta Kappa) and then received his PhD
from Harvard
in social psychology
. In 1976, he became an assistant professor in the sociology department at the University of Minnesota
. At various times, he was a visiting professor at Indiana University
(1980), the University of Chicago
(1985), the University of Bremen
(1986), and the University of Iceland
(1988). In 1988, he received the American Folklore Society
's Opie Award for the Best Scholarly Book in the field of Children's Folklore and Culture for his work With The Boys, an ethnographic
study of Little League
baseball teams.
In 1990, he became the department head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Georgia
, a position he held until 1993, after which he remained a professor. In 1990 he was also the President of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interactionism. During the term of 1994 to 1995, he was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
, affiliated with Stanford University
. He continued at the University of Georgia but accepted a position at Northwestern University
in Evanston
, Illinois beginning in 1997, where in 2005 he was named John Evans Professor. In 2002, he was the President of the Midwest Sociological Society, and in 2005 he was President of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. He remains at Northwestern and in 2003 was a fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences
at Uppsala University
in Sweden. In 2005 and 2006, he was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation
in New York City. He is the current editor (through 2010) of Social Psychology Quarterly
, an official journal of the American Sociological Association. He is married to Susan Hirsig Fine and has two children.
Fine has written ethnographies of a number of diverse small group activities from analyses of Dungeons and Dragons players and mushroom hunters
to high school policy debate
rs and restaurant workers. Fine maintains that these different groups and distinct areas connect:
His work on rumor
has made a substantial contribution to the understanding of urban legends and the transmission of rumors. In 2001, he co-authored a book with University of California-Davis Professor Patricia Turner on rumors in the African-American community and rumors and urban legends held by whites about blacks in the United States
. He is currently researching rumors related to the September 11 attacks
and terrorism
. A recently published manuscript deals with the social production and communication of scientific
work at the National Weather Service
.
Another area of research includes the complicated historical and social reputations of figures such as Thorstein Veblen
, Benedict Arnold
, Fatty Arbuckle
, Herman Melville
, Vladimir Nabokov
, Warren Harding, Sinclair Lewis
, and Henry Ford
. On August 4, 2004, several months before the 2004 Presidential Election, he set off a minor storm, especially in the political blogger community
, with his Op-Ed
piece in the Washington Post "Ire to the Chief" that argued that the commonly-expressed hatreds of Presidents George W. Bush
, Bill Clinton
, and Richard Nixon
reflected their behavior and activities in youth more than their specific policies as President.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44160-2004Aug5.html
Fine is also a major figure in the study of the work of Erving Goffman
and the theory of symbolic interactionism
. He co-edited with Gregory W. H. Smith a major compilation of Goffman's work and of criticism and analysis of his contribution to the social sciences. Together with Kent Sandstrom and Dan Martin, he has produced a forthcoming textbook on symbolic interactionism entitled Symbols, Selves, and Social Reality: A Symbolic Interactionist Approach to Sociology and Social Psychology.
's book, the Fast Food Nation
, for Reason magazine
.http://reason.com/0111/cr.gf.chewing.shtml
. While researching his book about outsider art
Everyday Genius, he became well-acquainted with many of the major figures and artists in that segment of the art world. He studied the cases of major outsider (self-taught) artists like Henry Darger
, Bill Traylor
, Edgar Tolson
, Thornton Dial
, Lonnie Holley
, Martin Ramirez
, Sam Doyle
, and Howard Finster
. He is also an avid collector of outsider art himself. While researching the book and living in Georgia, he was a member of the Nexus Center for Contemporary Art and a board member at the High Museum of Art
in Atlanta. He is also currently a board member of the Intuit: Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago
.
teams in Minnesota
. The book depicts an activity, although popular in United States, that is often seen as esoteric and confusing. His son, Todd David Fine, as described in the dedication to the book, first saw a video of the activity as a young child while Fine was researching the book. Apparently inspired, in high school, Todd, along with his partners Adam Goldstein and Julie Bashkin, went on to capture the national-circuit debate championship the Tournament of Champions
and the Barkley Forum
at Emory University
, another major championship in the activity.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
sociologist
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
and author.
Life and career
The son of Bernard David Fine and Bernice Estelle Tanz, Fine grew up in ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
and went to the Horace Mann School
Horace Mann School
Horace Mann School is an independent college preparatory school in New York City, New York, United States founded in 1887 known for its rigorous course of studies. Horace Mann is a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League, educating students from all across the New York tri-state area from...
. He studied psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
(Phi Beta Kappa) and then received his PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
from Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in social psychology
Social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
. In 1976, he became an assistant professor in the sociology department at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
. At various times, he was a visiting professor at Indiana University
Indiana University Bloomington
Indiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...
(1980), the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
(1985), the University of Bremen
University of Bremen
The University of Bremen is a university of approximately 23,500 people from 126 countries that are studying, teaching, researching, and working in Bremen, Germany...
(1986), and the University of Iceland
University of Iceland
The University of Iceland is a public research university in Reykjavík, Iceland, and the country's oldest and largest institution of higher education. Founded in 1911, it has grown steadily from a small civil servants' school to a modern comprehensive university, providing instruction for about...
(1988). In 1988, he received the American Folklore Society
American Folklore Society
The American Folklore Society is the US-based professional association for folklorists, with members from the US, Canada, and around the world. It was founded in 1888 by William Wells Newell, who stood at the center of a diverse group of university-based scholars, museum anthropologists, and men...
's Opie Award for the Best Scholarly Book in the field of Children's Folklore and Culture for his work With The Boys, an ethnographic
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
study of Little League
Little League
Little League Baseball and Softball is a non-profit organization in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, United States which organizes local youth baseball and softball leagues throughout the U.S...
baseball teams.
In 1990, he became the department head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Georgia
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...
, a position he held until 1993, after which he remained a professor. In 1990 he was also the President of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interactionism. During the term of 1994 to 1995, he was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences is an American interdisciplinary research body in Stanford, California focusing on the social sciences and humanities . Fellows are elected in a closed process, to spend a period of residence at the Center, released from other duties...
, affiliated with Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. He continued at the University of Georgia but accepted a position at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
in Evanston
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
, Illinois beginning in 1997, where in 2005 he was named John Evans Professor. In 2002, he was the President of the Midwest Sociological Society, and in 2005 he was President of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. He remains at Northwestern and in 2003 was a fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences
Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences
The Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences is an institute for advanced study in Uppsala, Sweden. It is affiliated with Uppsala University and one of the nine member institutions of the Some Institutes for Advanced Study consortium....
at Uppsala University
Uppsala University
Uppsala University is a research university in Uppsala, Sweden, and is the oldest university in Scandinavia, founded in 1477. It consistently ranks among the best universities in Northern Europe in international rankings and is generally considered one of the most prestigious institutions of...
in Sweden. In 2005 and 2006, he was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation
Russell Sage Foundation
The Russell Sage Foundation is the principal American foundation devoted exclusively to research in the social sciences. Founded in 1907 and headquartered in New York City, the foundation is a research center, a funding source for studies by scholars at other institutions, and a key member of the...
in New York City. He is the current editor (through 2010) of Social Psychology Quarterly
Social Psychology Quarterly
Social Psychology Quarterly is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers in the field of social psychology. The journal's editors-in-chief are Karen A. Hegtvedt and Cathryn Johnson...
, an official journal of the American Sociological Association. He is married to Susan Hirsig Fine and has two children.
Academic focus
Mushroom hunting
Mushroom hunting, mushrooming, mushroom picking, and similar terms describe the activity of gathering mushrooms in the wild, typically for eating...
to high school policy debate
Policy debate
Policy debate is a form of speech competition in which teams of two advocate for and against a resolution that typically calls for policy change by the United States federal government or security discourse...
rs and restaurant workers. Fine maintains that these different groups and distinct areas connect:
His work on rumor
Rumor
A rumor or rumour is often viewed as "an unverified account or explanation of events circulating from person to person and pertaining to an object, event, or issue in public concern" However, a review of the research on rumor conducted by Pendleton in 1998 found that research across sociology,...
has made a substantial contribution to the understanding of urban legends and the transmission of rumors. In 2001, he co-authored a book with University of California-Davis Professor Patricia Turner on rumors in the African-American community and rumors and urban legends held by whites about blacks in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. He is currently researching rumors related to the September 11 attacks
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
and terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
. A recently published manuscript deals with the social production and communication of scientific
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
work at the National Weather Service
National Weather Service
The National Weather Service , once known as the Weather Bureau, is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States government...
.
Another area of research includes the complicated historical and social reputations of figures such as Thorstein Veblen
Thorstein Veblen
Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen was an American economist and sociologist, and a leader of the so-called institutional economics movement...
, Benedict Arnold
Benedict Arnold
Benedict Arnold V was a general during the American Revolutionary War. He began the war in the Continental Army but later defected to the British Army. While a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and plotted to surrender it to the British forces...
, Fatty Arbuckle
Fatty Arbuckle
Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Starting at the Selig Polyscope Company he eventually moved to Keystone Studios where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd...
, Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
, Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
, Warren Harding, Sinclair Lewis
Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...
, and Henry Ford
Henry Ford
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
. On August 4, 2004, several months before the 2004 Presidential Election, he set off a minor storm, especially in the political blogger community
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...
, with his Op-Ed
Op-ed
An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page , is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board...
piece in the Washington Post "Ire to the Chief" that argued that the commonly-expressed hatreds of Presidents George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, and Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
reflected their behavior and activities in youth more than their specific policies as President.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44160-2004Aug5.html
Fine is also a major figure in the study of the work of Erving Goffman
Erving Goffman
Erving Goffman was a Canadian-born sociologist and writer.The 73rd president of American Sociological Association, Goffman's greatest contribution to social theory is his study of symbolic interaction in the form of dramaturgical perspective that began with his 1959 book The Presentation of Self...
and the theory of symbolic interactionism
Symbolic interactionism
Symbolic Interaction, also known as interactionism, is a sociological theory that places emphasis on micro-scale social interaction to provide subjective meaning in human behavior, the social process and pragmatism.-History:...
. He co-edited with Gregory W. H. Smith a major compilation of Goffman's work and of criticism and analysis of his contribution to the social sciences. Together with Kent Sandstrom and Dan Martin, he has produced a forthcoming textbook on symbolic interactionism entitled Symbols, Selves, and Social Reality: A Symbolic Interactionist Approach to Sociology and Social Psychology.
Restaurants
In addition to his analysis of restaurant establishment culture in his 1996 book Kitchens: The Culture of Restaurant Work, Fine considers himself a sort of amateur restaurant critic. He is currently maintaining a blog, Veal Cheeks, describing his restaurant visits while living in New York City. His writing style, punchy and wry, can also be seen in his review of Eric SchlosserEric Schlosser
Eric Schlosser is an American journalist and author known for investigative journalism, such as in his books Fast Food Nation, Reefer Madness and Chew On This.- Personal History :...
's book, the Fast Food Nation
Fast Food Nation
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal is a book by investigative journalist Eric Schlosser that examines the local and global influence of the United States fast food industry....
, for Reason magazine
Reason (magazine)
Reason is a libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 60,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.- History :...
.http://reason.com/0111/cr.gf.chewing.shtml
Art
Another subject in which Fine has combined his personal and academic interests is artArt
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
. While researching his book about outsider art
Outsider Art
The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut , a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane-asylum inmates.While...
Everyday Genius, he became well-acquainted with many of the major figures and artists in that segment of the art world. He studied the cases of major outsider (self-taught) artists like Henry Darger
Henry Darger
Henry Joseph Darger, Jr. was a reclusive American writer and artist who worked as a custodian in Chicago, Illinois...
, Bill Traylor
Bill Traylor
William "Bill" Traylor was a self-taught artist born into slavery on a plantation belonging to George Hartwell Traylor near Benton, in Lowndes County, Alabama. After emancipation, his family continued to farm on the plantation until the 1930s...
, Edgar Tolson
Edgar Tolson
Edgar Tolson was a woodcarver from Kentucky who became a well-known folk artist.He was born in Trent Fork, Wolfe County as the fourth of eleven children and educated through the sixth grade. He worked as a carpenter and stonemason and was married twice, fathering eighteen children in all. From his...
, Thornton Dial
Thornton Dial
Thornton Dial is an artist who came to prominence in the United States in the late 1980s. He was one of 12 children and grew up poor and without his father's presence in the family, and this poverty led him and his siblings to create toys from the discarded objects around them...
, Lonnie Holley
Lonnie Holley
Lonnie Bradley Holley, sometimes known as The Sand Man , is an African American artist and art educator....
, Martin Ramirez
Martin Ramirez
Martín Ramírez was a self-taught artist who spent most of his adult life institutionalized in California mental hospitals, diagnosed as a catatonic schizophrenic.-Biography:He was born in 1895....
, Sam Doyle
Sam Doyle
Sam Doyle was a Gullah folk artist bornon Saint Helena Island, South Carolina. He painted on scraps of wood and metal, documenting both St. Helena firsts and prominent members of the island community....
, and Howard Finster
Howard Finster
Howard Finster was an American artist and Baptist reverend from Georgia. He claimed to be inspired by God to spread the gospel through the environment of Paradise Garden and over 46,000 pieces of art. His creations overlap folk art, outsider art, naïve art, and visionary art...
. He is also an avid collector of outsider art himself. While researching the book and living in Georgia, he was a member of the Nexus Center for Contemporary Art and a board member at the High Museum of Art
High Museum of Art
The High Museum of Art , located in Atlanta, is the leading art museum in the Southeastern United States and one of the most-visited art museums in the world. Located on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district, the High is a division of the Woodruff Arts Center.-History:The Museum was...
in Atlanta. He is also currently a board member of the Intuit: Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
.
Policy Debate
During his research for Gifted Tongues: High School Debate and Adolescent Culture, he followed and observed several high school policy debatePolicy debate
Policy debate is a form of speech competition in which teams of two advocate for and against a resolution that typically calls for policy change by the United States federal government or security discourse...
teams in Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. The book depicts an activity, although popular in United States, that is often seen as esoteric and confusing. His son, Todd David Fine, as described in the dedication to the book, first saw a video of the activity as a young child while Fine was researching the book. Apparently inspired, in high school, Todd, along with his partners Adam Goldstein and Julie Bashkin, went on to capture the national-circuit debate championship the Tournament of Champions
Tournament of Champions (debate)
The Tournament of Champions is a high school debate tournament held annually at the University of Kentucky on the first weekend of May. It is the most prestigious tournament on the "national circuit," representing some of the most competitively successful debaters from the nation's most prestigious...
and the Barkley Forum
Barkley Forum
The Barkley Forum, named after Emory alumnus and former United States Vice-President Alben W. Barkley, is the intercollegiate debate and forensics organization at Emory University. Debate at Emory began in the 1830s...
at Emory University
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...
, another major championship in the activity.
Works
- (With Ralph Rosnow) Rumor and Gossip: The Social Psychology of Hearsay, Elsevier-North Holland (New York, NY), 1976.
- Shared Fantasy: Role Playing Games As Social Worlds, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1983.
- Talking Sociology, Allyn and Bacon (Boston, MA), 1985.
- With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1987.
- (Editor) Meaningful Play, Playful Meaning, Human Kinetics Publishers (Champaign, IL), 1987.
- (With Kent L. Sandstrom) Knowing Children: Participant Observation with Minors, Sage (Newberry Park, CA), 1988.
- (Editor, with John Johnson and Harvey A. Farberman) Sociological Slices: Introductory Readings from the Interactionist Perspective, JAI Press (Greenwich, CT), 1992.
- Manufacturing Tales: Sex and Money in Contemporary Legends, University of Tennessee Press (Knoxville, TN), 1992.
- (Editor, with Karen Cook and James S. House) Sociological Perspectives on Social Psychology, Allyn and Bacon (Boston, MA), 1994.
- (Editor) A Second Chicago School?: The Development of a Postwar American Sociology, University of Chicago (Chicago, IL), 1995.
- Kitchens: The Culture of Restaurant Work, University of California (Berkeley, CA), 1996.
- Morel Tales: The Culture of Mushrooming, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1998.
- (Editor, with Gregory W. H. Smith) Erving Goffman, Sage (Thousand Oaks, CA), 2000.
- Difficult Reputations: Collective Memories of the Evil, Inept, and Controversial, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2001.
- Gifted Tongues: High School Debate and Adolescent Culture, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2001.
- (With Patricia A. Turner) Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America, University of California (Berkeley, CA), 2001.
- (With Daniel D. Martin and Kent L. Sandstrom) Symbols, Selves, and Social Life: A Symbolic Interactionist Approach, Roxbury (Los Angeles, CA), 2002.
- Gary Alan Fine and Patricia Turner, Whispers On the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2001.
- Gary Alan Fine and David Shulman, Talking Sociology, Fifth Edition. Allyn and Bacon (Boston, MA), 2003.
- Everyday Genius: Self-Taught Art and the Culture of Authenticity, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2004.
- Kent Sandstrom, Daniel D. Martin, and Gary Alan Fine, Symbols, Selves and Social Life: A Symbolic Interactionist Approach to Sociology and Social Psychology. Roxbury (Los Angeles, CA), In press.