Book Review
Abstract
CISspcisContributions to Indian Sociology0069-96670973-0648SAGE PublicationsSage India: New Delhi, India10.1177/00699667110450030810.1177_006996671104500308Book ReviewSitharamanSudhaPondicherry University Puducherry102011453452455ChaudhuriMaitrayee (ed.), Sociology in India: Intellectual and Institu-tional Practices. Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2010. xv + 406 pp Tables, notes, references, index. Rs 795 (hardback).© SAGE Publications 20112011SAGE PublicationsThis book comprises of a collection of essays originally meant for a workshop in Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2007 and in many ways may be read as a worthy sequel to the editor’s earlier work, The Practice of Sociology, published in 2003. The volume focuses squarely on ‘intel-lectual and institutional practices’ in the discipline of sociology and its challenges within ‘new locations’ (p. 1).Predominantly contributed to by young scholars, the effort is to recount and critique the rich and diverse classroom experiences of teaching social sciences across the country by placing them in a multiplicity of hier-archies, including diverse geographical locations, medium of instruction, rural-urban disparities and caste/class composition of students. Critiquing the current state of the discipline has been, for a long time, a preoccupation of professional sociologists in India, where issues like uneven quality of research, language of instruction, mechanical use of borrowed or derived concepts and other similar concerns have been focused on. As socio-logical teaching and