Sociological Imagination and Literary Sensitivity: A Tribute to M. N. Srinivas

Abstract

M. N. Srinivas is undoubtedly the most readable among sociologists in India. For him, the way he wrote about a subject was as important as the subject itself. This lent a literary flavour to his writings. His writings are, in fact, imbued with a rare combination of sociological imagination and literary sensitivity; The Remembered Village, his masterpiece is perhaps the best illustration of this. In his Hassan Raja Rao Lecture, titled ‘Social Anthropology and Literary Sensibility’ (1998), he explained the relevance and importance of such sensitivity for sociologists engaged in understanding society and culture. Taking a cue from this, the instant lecture examines the mutual relations between sociological imagination and literary sensitivity. Substantively, it elucidates the sociological imagination embedded in literature and the consequent importance of literature for the sociologist.

Ethnicity, Self-Knowledge and Literary Sensitivity: A Sociological Reading of V. S. Naipaul’s First Four Novels

“…There is ample scope for such sociological engagement with the literary works in Indian languages, especially those on societies and periods on which little or no ethnographic data or sociological analyses are available. I have emphasised this earlier in my M. N. Srinivas Memorial Lecture (Jayaram, 2019) and would reiterate it in this lecture in memory of his teacher, Ghurye.…”