This article fills a long-standing gap, proposing a framework for what Goffman called for in 1967’s Interaction Ritual: a sociology of occasions. Occasions are omnipresent throughout the sociological literature yet are often only casually analyzed. The author proposes a perspective that solidifies occasions as a basic unit of sociological analysis. This proposal offers a framework based on (1) four resources, (2) three patterns, and (3) five properties. These simple and interlocking tools situate the occasion as a valuable and adaptable sociological focus.

Urban sociology, often and quite reasonably, emphasizes the effects of large‐scale and corporate cultures of cities and yet, at the smaller scale, there is a diverse and complex set of practices that reinvigorate the urban landscape. By pairing ethnographic fieldnotes with interviews, this paper offers a limited rejoinder to these narratives, evincing the lived interactions of one set of characters that reenchants cities. For the purposes of this article, walking tour guides serve as examples of “urban alchemists,” and three of their practices are advanced for discussion: their use of myths and revelatory stories to uproot banal visions of the city; their aim to incorporate chance and serendipity into their interactions; and their attempts to transform their participants into “better” urban dwellers.

In this essay, I use my own research experiences to address a critical intersection between technology and sociology. I suggest that thinking reflexively about technology might enhance both how sociologists do research and how they teach about it.

Through walking and talking, tour guides weave together an array of stories and facts in order to re-produce varied urban cultures and local histories. The practices of these 'cultural intermediaries' must at once be entertaining as well as educational, and are set within a rich urban context that is itself increasing in commercialization and homogenization. As a segment of a larger ethnographic study, this essay focuses on the storytelling tools these social actors use to reproduce New York City's history, culture, and meaning-eight tricks of the trade. As illustration of this social world and the practices within it, description of a Grand Central Terminal tour is woven throughout the analysis in a series of vignettes.

Types, roles, and individuals have collectively held a place in qualitative research alongside and at times within neighborhood and community studies but have not enjoyed systematization. This article examines how ‘characters’ have been, and can be, developed for sociological analysis. Moving from an abridged history of what I will call ‘character-focused study’ – from Simmel, Park, and Hughes to more contemporary work – this article proposes seven common emphases on display throughout 21 qualitative studies drawn from this tradition. The article concludes with a discussion of the potential ramifications ethnographers should consider when making the methodological choice to include characters in the research design and writing of their work.