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Norman Denzin edited and published the first volume of Studies in Symbolic Interaction in 1978. In more than four decades, Denzin published more than 50 volumes of this book series. This chapter provides a fine-grain view of the contribution of Norman Denzin to the Studies of Symbolic Interaction.

At the November 2002 National Communication Association Convention, The Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction Affiliate sponsored a spotlight panel honoring the contributions of Laurel Richardson to symbolic interaction and communication. These sessions feature distinguished symbolic interactionists who have contributed to the study of communication and promoted interdisciplinary discussion between communication and symbolic interaction scholars. Under the leadership of Shing-Ling (Sarina) Chen, these annual sessions have become highlights of NCA meetings for ethnographers, symbolic interactionists, performance and cultural studies scholars. Following such esteemed honorees as David Maines (1999), Norman Denzin (2000), and Peter Hall (2001), the spotlight on Laurel Richardson produced another exciting program.

It is an honor and a pleasure to commence this lecture series on symbolic interaction, society, and social change. The series is designed to present veteran scholars who have set new directions and explored new terrains with insightful, creative, and consequential analysis of critical social and sociological issues. Embedded in that intention is the desire to examine conditions and processes of social transformations and social action. I am deeply appreciative of the intellectual and material support from the Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research, the generosity of the Couch family, and the committed and energetic efforts of Professor Shing-Ling (Sarina) Chen in proposing and facilitating this venture. We also are indebted to the staff and officers of the Midwest Sociological Society and the 2003 Program Chair, Chris Prendergast, for providing encouragement and the program time for the lecture.

In this chapter I wish to acknowledge the unintentional contributions made by Norman K. Denzin to the new Iowa School, one which championed laboratory research, or what Dr. Denzin referred to as, “Green Carpet Sociology.” The term refers to the pea-soup-colored rug that covered the new Iowa School Research Laboratory. I also wish to extend the notion of Dr. Denzin as one of the unintended fathers of the Green Carpet approach by describing my particular intellectual relationship with him and noting how he inspired me while I completed my undergraduate degree in Sociology at the University of Illinois. In particular, I review three phases of Dr. Denzin's influence: the awakening, the metamorphoses, and the benediction. All three phases relate to how Dr. Denzin inspired a commitment to the ethos of the “Green Carpet Way.”

The purpose of the Ethics Support Office, funded by the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) and administered by the Institute for Translational Sciences (ITS) at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), is to provide research ethics support to faculty, fellows, and students. This chapter reports on an ongoing qualitative study to understand scientists' views on ethical issues in team science and their suggestions for advancing ethical policy and activities in order to improve ethics training. We originally conducted face-to-face, semistructured, qualitative interviews with a convenience sample of 20 key ITS researchers, representing the majority of researchers. The scientists' most general approach to ethics – in perceiving them, understanding them, and applying them – is to appreciate ethics in terms of their relevance to particular research situations and problems. They prefer to deal with ethics as a common feature and value incorporated into their work. Respondents suggested that those teaching ethics in multidisciplinary translational research must develop strategies that help scientists see and understand the relevance of ethics education to their work. Strategies include improving communication skills, providing shared opportunities for learning, sensitizing researchers to the demands on others on the team who are expected to contribute data and knowledge to the success of the project, and imbedding ethicists on research teams. In tune with the key finding of the study, ethics instructors and coaches need to become well acquainted with the nuances of their scientists' work. This approach will respond to the scientists' desire to conduct ethical research, but in practical terms of the specialized nature of their work.

Norman Denzin's career as a symbolic interactionist spans many years and has produced an incredible amount of high-quality scholarship. His work as editor of Studies in Symbolic Interaction has served as a platform for disseminating a wide range of innovative ideas, research, and reviews in our discipline. In this chapter, I will discuss two features of Studies that point to the great value of its work to symbolic interaction in general and to the areas of music studies in particular. Those two features are planting the seed of interactionist scholarship in an initial paper, and growing collective interactionist projects through special issues. My examples will be drawn from my own experiences with Studies over the years, and my approach to research and writing on music phenomena.

Writing is one of the key features of the life and work of the symbolic interactionist. The foundation of good writing is the establishment of the self and identity of the interactionist qua writer. The best writers are those who write constantly – not necessarily in formal text form but also in term of journals, note-taking, and so forth. Writing does not retrieve our ideas from our minds and memories; it creates them as retrievable gems of our work. My argument is that, as symbolic interactionists, we have the opportunity, if not responsibility, to position the drama of everyday life in our writing because our respondents experience their everyday lives dramatically.