Given by Kenneth Liberman,
Professor Emeritus, University of Oregon
March 6 – April 1, 2015


Prof. Liberman will lead seminar participants through a close chapter-by-chapter reading of Garfinkel’s final book, Ethnomethodology’s Program. Liberman, who was Garfinkel’s student for many decades and is author of More Studies in Ethnomethodology, received most of these arguments, demonstrations, and descriptions first-hand from Prof. Garfinkel, and so he is capable of guiding participants through most key passages and notions of this important and stimulating text, and he will offer clarifications of the more obscure sections, bringing Garfinkel’s thinking to life. The seminar will be ideal preparation for the conference of the International Association for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, which University of Southern Denmark, Kolding, will be hosting in Kolding 4-7 August 2015.

Discussions will be supplemented with illustrations (including video data of pedestrian street crossings, games-with-rules, and turn-taking in the surfing lineup), material from Garfinkel’s “Boston Seminar”, and some student-generated examples.


Author's introduction, Chapt 1 "The Central Claims of Ethnomethodology," & Chapt 2 "Em Studies and Their Formal Analytic Alternates


Chapt 3 "Rendering Theorems," Chapt 4 "Tutorial Problems," & Chapt 5 "Ethnomethodological Policies"


Chapt 6 “Instructions and Instructed Actions, & Chapt 7 “Teaching Undergraduate Chemistry in Lecture Format”


Chapt 8 “Autochthonous Order Properties of Formatted Queues” & Chapt 9 “Galileo’s Inclined Plane Demonstration of Real Motion”