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Critical Themes in Indian Sociology brings together the writings of a number of scholars—both well established and younger, in India and in different parts of the world—on various themes that express the richness and diversity that defines sociological scholarship on India. The book reflects changes in scholarship over time and charts out new subjects and methods for the study of social life in India. Commemorating the 50 plus years since Contributions to Indian Sociology was first published, this book is a tribute to a journal that has sustained an internationally acclaimed and rigorous sociological engagement with India. Comprising a wide range of themes such as village, city, class, caste, politics, gender, sexuality, media, food and education, this book presents a concise, yet in-depth sense of a sociological view of India today.

Contents: 1. The State as an Ethnographic Object/Thomas Blom Hansen. 2. The Folk and the Making of an Indian Aesthetic/Roma Chatterji. 3. Religious Violence: A Sociological Perspective/Ronie Parciack. 4. Contemporary Religiosities/Jacob Copeman and Johannes Quack. 5. Artful Living: New Religious Movements in and of South Asia/Tulasi Srinivas. 6. Villages and Villagers in Contemporary India/Surinder S. Jodhka. 7. Fields, Markets and Agricultural Commodities/Mekhala Krishnamurthy. 8. The Nation, De-duplicated/Lawrence Cohen. 9. Internet Cultures/Nicholas Nisbett and Aditi Bhonagiri. 10. Schooling and Culture: Bringing Schools into Sociology/Meenakshi Thapan. 11. Cultures of Work in India’s ‘New Economy’/Carol Upadhya. 12. The Sociology of Labour in India/Geert de Neve. 13. Hierarchy without System? Why Civility Matters in the Study of Caste/Suryakant Waghmore. 14. Caste and the Anthropology of Democracy/Lucia Michelutti. 15. The Middle Class’ and the Middle Classes/Raka Ray. 16. Tribe, Egalitarian Values, Autonomy and the State/Alpa Shah. 17. Gendering Sociology, a Sociology of Gender, or Studying Women? Some Reflections/Rajni Palriwala. 18. Contemporary Intimacies/Parveez Mody. 19. Conjugality and Marital Dissolution in Historical Perspective/Shalini Grover. 20. Gender and Law/Srimati Basu. 21. Masculinities and Culture/Joseph S. Alter. 22. The Sociology of Disability: Conceptual Ethnography of an Analytical Category in India/Renu Addlakha. 23. Alternating Sexualities: Sociology and Queer Critiques in India/Paul Boyce and Rohit K. Dasgupta. 24. Ageing, Ambivalent Modernities, and the Pursuit of Value in India/Sarah Lamb. 25. New Cultures of Food Studies/Amita Baviskar. 26. Cinematic Cultures/Sara Dickey. 27. The Sociology of Consumption in India: Towards a New Agenda/Margit van Wessel. 28. The Challenge of Urban Space/Smriti Srinivas. 29. Feet on the Ground, Eyes on the Horizon: The Anthropology of Environment and Climate Change/Rita Brara. 30. Beyond Medical Pluralism: Medicine, Power and Social Legitimacy in India/V. Sujatha. Index.