Allice Goffman On The Run Book Report

On the Run is a book by Allice Goffman. Goffman wrote a novel about a black neighborhood in Philadelphia, where she explains how she had been studying the neighborhood for six years. Throughout the book, Goffman tries to protect the community by not using any real names or place, but by doing so, many people start to question the authenticity of the book, since they are unable verify the facts within the book. Although the book has faced skepticism, On the Run won the dissertation award from the American Sociological Association. As a result, Goffman has since been able to make 32 public speaking appearances, and a Ted talk for her findings according to New York Times.
The problem though happened when Alice would often have various accounts of what happened, and people would notice that the things she was saying would not add up. Later on, she received “an unsigned, 60-page, single-spaced document detailing a series of claims casting doubt on a veracity of events as Goffman described them… and the allegations seemed in their profusion hard to write off,” the New York Times. Therefore, many people called her out for her forgery and for being a felon.
According to Leon Neyfakh, author of The Ethics of Ethnography, Steven Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern University, explains how flawed the book was. He also stated that Goffman had committed a felony, because of the attempted murder plot which represented a gross ethical violation. Goffman responded that she did dress up the story to make it more dramatic, and her critics responded by accusing her of being either a liar or a felon. It also begged to question how many more scenes she embellished, and which of her words were actually