ABSTRACT
Randall Collins views conversation as perhaps the most frequent locus of rhythmic social interaction in which high solidarity is ritually attained between participants. Collins wishes people to understand that emotional attunement occurs at the ultra-micro level, with conversational partners in sync with each other at tempos of fractions-of-a-second. Further, Erickson and Schultz's admirable micro-focused analysis revealed four types of 'interactional arrythmia', moments of disturbance of the otherwise normal or 'regular' interactional rhythm, to which Collins pays so much attention. Collins observes that such talks on university campuses and their denouement illustrate once again the rhythm and entrainment features of social ritual and interaction. There are two elements in Collins's discussion of intellectual work: the content of the thought the 'what', as he calls it and the social interaction or 'social motivation' it portends. There Collins surveys the many battlefields of intellectual strife, detailing the rise and fall of different personalities and schools.
