DEREK SAYER, PhD, FRSC
CURRICULUM VITAE
PERSONAL DETAILS
Date of birth: 3 December 1950
Citizenship: Canadian and British
E-mail: dsayer@ualberta.ca
Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta
WEB
EMPLOYMENT
2006-16. Professor of Cultural History, Lancaster University.
2001-5. Canada Research Chair in Social Theory and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta.
1988-2000. Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Alberta.
1986-8. Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Alberta.
1979-86. Lecturer in Sociology, University of Glasgow.
1978-9. Lecturer in Sociology, Glasgow College of Technology.
1975-8. SSRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Durham.
Visiting positions: Institute for Historical Studies, University of Texas at Austin (2013-14); Sociological Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences (1991-3); Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (summer 1986); University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania (1981-3, summer semesters).
QUALIFICATIONS
PhD in Sociology, Durham, 1975.
BA in Sociology, First Class Honours, Essex, 1972.
HONORS AND AWARDS
Postcards from Absurdistan
—Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Scholarship, 2023. Winner. This award “recognizes the finest books with Jewish themes and subjects by Canadian authors in a variety of genres.”
—Association of American Publishers PROSE Awards, European History category, 2023. Finalist. These awards honor “the very best in professional and scholarly publishing.”
Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century
—George L. Mosse Prize, 2014. Winner. This prize is awarded annually by the American Historical Association for “an outstanding major work of extraordinary scholarly distinction, creativity, and originality in the intellectual and cultural history of Europe since 1500.”
—Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize, 2014. Honorable Mention. This prize is sponsored by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) and the Center for Russian and East European Studies of Stanford University and is awarded annually for “the most important contribution to Russian, Eurasian, and East European studies in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences.”
—F. X. Šalda Prize, 2014. Special Mention. This prize is awarded annually by the F. X. Šalda Foundation and the Institute of Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences for “an exceptional contribution to art history and criticism.” This was the first time a foreign language work had been thus honored in the 17 years of the prize.
—One of Financial Times Books of the Year, 2013.
The Coasts of Bohemia
—Listed by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Book of the Year, 1998.
Capitalism and Modernity
—Listed in International Sociological Association’s “Books of the Century,” 1999.
McCalla Research Professor, University of Alberta, 1994-5.
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, 1994.
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (UK), 1990.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Books
2022. Postcards from Absurdistan: Prague at the End of History. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 752 pp.
—Czech translation, Prague: Volvox Globator, in press.
2018. Prague: Crossroads of Europe. London: Reaktion (Cityscopes series). 280 pp.
—Chinese translation, Shanghaiwenyi (Shanghai Art and Literature Publishing House), 2021.
2017. Making Trouble: Surrealism and the Human Sciences. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press. xi + 94 pp.
2015. Rank Hypocrisies: The Insult of the REF. London: Sage. 128 pp.
2013. Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century: A Surrealist History. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 595 + xxi pp.
—Czech translation. Prague: Volvox Globator, trans. Jindřich Veselý, 2021.
—Japanese translation. Tokyo: Hakusuisha, trans. Kenichi Abe, 2018.
2004. Going Down for Air: A Memoir in Search of a Subject. Boulder: Paradigm Press. 201 pp.
1998. The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 442 + xvii pp.
—section of Ch. 4 titled “Guten Tag und auf Wiedersehen” translated into Czech under title “O vzniku Československa v roce 1918. Jak to bylo doopravdy,” Britské listy, 28 October 2024.
1991. Capitalism and Modernity: An Excursus on Marx and Weber. London and New York: Routledge. 172 pp.
—Reprint of Ch. 4, “Without Regard for Persons,” in Jonathan Joseph (ed.), Social Theory: A Reader, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005.
—Turkish translation of Chapter 4, Toplum ve bilim, 1995.
—Spanish translation, Buenos Aires: Losada, 1995.
—Japanese translation, Kyoto: Koyo Shobo, 1993.
1987. The Violence of Abstraction: The Analytic Foundations of Historical Materialism. Oxford and New York: Blackwell. 173 pp.
—Turkish translation, Istanbul: Habitus, 2012.
1986. Society. With David Frisby. London and New York: Routledge. 129 pp.
—Turkish translation, Istanbul: Habitus, trans. Batuhan Bekmen, 2017.
—Reprint of Ch. 5, “Society as Second Nature” (Sayer), in Murray E. G. Smith (ed.), Early Modern Social Theory, Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 1998.
—Japanese translation, Tokyo: Koseisha Koseikaku, 1993.
1985. The Great Arch: English State Formation as Cultural Revolution. With Philip Corrigan. Oxford and New York: Blackwell. 268 pp. 2nd enlarged edition, 1991.
—Spanish translation of Introduction and Afterthoughts, in Antropología del Estado: Dominación y prácticas contestatarias en América Latina, ed. María L. Lagos and Pamela Calla, Cuaderno de Futuro Nº 23, La Paz (Bolivia): Hernando Calla, 2007, pp. 39-116.
1979. Marx’s Method: Ideology, Science and Critique in Capital. Brighton: Harvester Press; Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press. 208 pp. 2nd edition, with new afterword, 1983.
—Korean translation, Seoul: In’gan Sarang, 1986.
1979. For Mao: Essays in Historical Materialism. With Philip Corrigan and Harvie Ramsay. London: Macmillan. 226 pp.
1978. Socialist Construction and Marxist Theory: Bolshevism and its Critique. With Philip Corrigan and Harvie Ramsay. London: Macmillan; New York: Monthly Review Press. 232 pp.
In press
The Great Arch: English State Formation as Cultural Revolution and Further Essays on State Formation. With Philip Corrigan. Leiden: Brill and Chicago: Haymarket. This is a reprint of The Great Arch (1991 edition) together with nine other essays by Philip Corrigan and/or me.
Studies in Marx’s Method. Leiden: Brill, and Chicago: Haymarket. This is a reprint of Marx’s Method (1983 edition) and The Violence of Abstraction in one volume.
Undisciplined: Essays in History and Theory. Leiden: Brill, and Chicago: Haymarket. Contains 20 of my writings from 1979-2025, three of which are previously unpublished.
Edited books
2013. The Inhabited Ruins of Central Europe: Re-imagining Space, History and Memory. Co-edited with Dariusz Gafijczuk. New York: Palgrave. 252 pp.
2008. Twenty Years of the Journal of Historical Sociology. Co-edited with Yoke-Sum Wong. Two volumes, Essays on the British State and Challenging the Field. Oxford and New York: Wiley.
1989. Readings from Karl Marx. London and New York: Routledge. 243 pp.
Articles in academic journals
2025. The Tyranny of the Abstract. Sociology Lens, January 14, DOI: 10.1111/johs.12490.
2023. Hundreds and Hundreds. Anthropology and Humanism, 48(2), 2023.
2021. From the “Body Politic” to the “National Interest”: English State Formation in Comparative and Historical Perspective. With Philip Corrigan. Journal of Historical Sociology, Vol. 35, No. 1, 109-152.
2019. Prague at the End of History (The Prague Address). New Perspectives, Vol. 27, No. 2, 149-160.
2018. Surrealist Prague (this little mother has claws). New Perspectives, Vol. 26, No. 2, 65-75.
2018. Machines that Can Substitute for Humans—Notes on the Boundaries of Humanity. Nrivijnana Patrika/Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 22 (Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh).
—A slightly different version of this essay appeared under the title “Between Karel Čapek and a Hard Brexit: Reflections on Robotics and Humanity” in New Perspectives, vol. 26 issue 2 suppl., https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X1802602S05
2017. White Riot—Brexit, Trump, and Post-Factual Politics. Journal of Historical Sociology, Vol. 30, No. 1, 92-106.
2016. Great Arches Viewed from the Coasts of Bohemia: Reflections Inspired by Tables of Kings. New Perspectives, Issue 2, 73-92.
2014. Modernism, Seen from Prague, March 1937. Artl@s Bulletin, Vol. 3, No. 1, 18-28.
2013. Pod Stalinem: Field Notes from Another Modernity. Journal of Classical Sociology, Vol. 13, No. 1, 87-103.
2012. André Breton and the Magic Capital: An Agony in Six Fits. Bohemia, Vol. 52, No. 1, 55-75.
2012. Crossed Wires: On the Prague-Paris Surrealist Telephone. Common Knowledge, Vol. 18, No. 2, 193-207.
2008. Wittgenstein at Ground Zero. Space and Culture, Vol. 11, No. 1, 12-19.
2004. Incognito Ergo Sum: Language, Memory and the Subject. Theory, Culture and Society, Vol. 21, No. 5, 67-89.
2004. The Unbearable Lightness of Building: A Cautionary Tale. Grey Room, No. 16, 6-35.
1998. A Quintessential Czechness. Common Knowledge, Vol. 7, No. 2, 136-164.
1998. The Language of Nationality and the Nationality of Language: Prague, 1780-1920. Past and Present, No. 153, 164-210.
1995. Prague as a Vantage Point on Modern European History. METU Studies in Development, vol. 22, no. 3, 259-289).
—Turkish translation: in Huri Islamoglu (ed.), Neden Avrupa Tarihi. Istanbul: Iletisim Yayincilik, 1997.
1992. A Notable Administration: English State Formation and the Rise of Capitalism. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 97, No. 5, 1382-1415.
1991. British Reaction to the Amritsar Massacre 1919-1920. Past and Present, No. 131, 130-64.
—Reprinted in D. K. Verma, G. Singh, P. B. Singh, and R. K. Ghai (eds), Jallianwala Bagh: Commemorative Volume and Amritsar and Our Duty to India, Patiala: Punjabi University, 1997, pp. 24-51.
—Reprinted in Punjab Past and Present, Spring 1996.
—Reprinted in D. Segal (ed.), Crossing Cultures: Essays in the Displacement of Western Civilization. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1992.
1987. Revolution Against the State: The Context and Significance of Marx’s Late Writings. With Philip Corrigan. Dialectical Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 1, 65-85.
1985. The Critique of Politics and Political Economy: Capitalism, Communism, and the State in Marx’s Writings of the Mid-1840s. Sociological Review, Vol. 33, No. 2, 221-253.
—Reprinted in R. Jessop (ed.), Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thought: Critical Assessments, London: Routledge, 1990.
1975. Method and Dogma in Historical Materialism. Sociological Review, Vol. 23, No. 4, 779-805.
1975. Moral Relations, Political Economy and Class Struggle. Radical Philosophy No. 12. With Philip Corrigan.
Book chapters, catalogue essays, review essays, encyclopedia entries
2026. Lifting the Curtain on the Twentieth Century: An Entertainment in Four Acts (in press).
2019. Karel Teige. In Michael Richardson (ed), The International Encyclopedia of Surrealism, Vol. 3, Surrealists M-Z, London: Bloomsbury, 316-324.
2016. L’il Wallet Picture. Introduction to Kyler Zeleny (ed.), Materialities. London: Velvet Cell Pocketbooks, 9-17.
2013. What We Remember and How We Forget: Art History and the Czech Avant-garde. In Dariusz Gafijczuk and Derek Sayer (eds), Inhabited Ruins of Central Europe, 148-177.
2013. American Surreal: The Day the Wall Came Down. In Gafijczuk and Sayer, Inhabited Ruins, 1-7.
2010. Hypermodernism in the Boondocks: Photo/Montage and the Czech Book. Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 33, No. 2, 243-9.
2009. The Photograph: The Still Image. In S. Barber and C. Peniston-Bird (eds), History Beyond the Text, London: Routledge, 48-70.
2007. Ceci n’est-pas un con: Duchamp, Lacan, and L’Origine du monde. In Marc Décimo (ed.), Marcel Duchamp and Eroticism, London: Cambridge Scholars Press, 160-172.
—French translation in Marc Décimo (ed.), Marcel Duchamp et l’érotisme, Dijon: Les Presses du réel, 2008, 175-187.
2002. Surrealities. In Timothy O. Benson (ed.), Central European Avant-Gardes: Exchange and Transformation 1910-1930, exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art/MIT Press, 90-107.
1994. Everyday Forms of State Formation: Dissident Remarks on Hegemony. In Gilbert Joseph and Daniel Nugent (eds), Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 367-378.
—Spanish translation in G. Joseph and D. Nugent (eds), Aspectos cotidianos de la formación del estado: la revolución y la negociación del mando en el México moderno, Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 2002.
1993. Ta krolewska wyspa, czyli raz jeszcze o “osobliwosciach Anglikow” (This Scepter’d Isle, or Once Again on the “Peculiarities of the English”). In A. Czarnota and A. Zybertowicz (eds), Interdyscyplinarne studia nad geneza kapitalismu, t.2. Torun: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Mikolaja Kopernika, 133-56.
1990. Reinventing the Wheel: Anthony Giddens, Karl Marx, and Social Change. In Jon Clark et al (eds), Anthony Giddens: Consensus and Controversy. London: Falmer Press, 235-256.
1984. Marx after Capital. In Teodor Shanin (ed.), Late Marx and the Russian Road. London: Routledge, and New York: Monthly Review Press, 142-171.
1984. Late Marx: Contradiction, Continuity, Learning. With Philip Corrigan. In Shanin, Late Marx, 77-94.
1981. How the Law Rules. With Philip Corrigan. In B. Fryer et al (eds), Law, State and Society. London: Croom Helm, 21-53. (Proceedings of 1980 BSA annual conference.)
1980. The State as a Relation of Production. With Philip Corrigan and Harvie Ramsay. In Philip Corrigan (ed.), Capitalism, State Formation, and Marxist Theory. London: Quartet, 1-26.
—Turkish translation, Praksis, June 2001.
1979. Science as Critique: Marx versus Althusser. In J. Mepham and J-H. Ruben (eds), Issues in Marxist Philosophy, vol. 3. Brighton: Harvester Press, and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities, 27-54.
Newspaper, magazine, and blog articles (recent and selected)
Articles in Canadian Dimension
From 2024 onward I published a series of articles on the Gaza War and other current events for Canadian Dimension (CD), many of which were translated into Czech in Britské listy (BL).
2025
The rewards of terror: erasing a genocide with the ‘Art of the Deal.’ CD/BL, October 2.
Oh Canada, where art thou? It’s elbows down as Mark Carney and Anita Anand throw Canadian ICC judge Kimberly Prost under the American bus. CD, August 31/BL, September 1.
A graveyard of liberal illusions. Some unpalatable takeouts from the killing fields of Gaza. CD, August 13/BL, August 13.
—Republished in Monthly Review Online, August 15.
Endgames in Gaza? This is not a ‘humanitarian crisis.’ It’s a genocide. Our genocide. CD, July 29/BL, August 29.
Things fall apart: the centre will not hold. Where is the West headed after Israel and America’s ‘12-Day War’ on Iran? CD, July 9/BL July 8.
Gaslighting the way to World War III: Israel’s right to self-defense and other tall tales for big children in high office. CD, June 17/BL, June 18.
—Republished in Monthly Review Online, June 18.
—Spanish translation, El «gaslighting» (manipulación psicológica de las personas durante un período prolongado) como camino a la Tercera Guerra Mundial, Gaceta Crítica, June 19.
One day, everyone will have always been against this. Is the near-unanimity of support for Israel’s assault on Gaza beginning to fade? CD, June 7/BL June 9.
—Republished in Monthly Review Online, June 9.
—Spanish translation, Un día, todo el mundo estará en contra de esto, in Gaceta Crítica, June 11.
Democracy dies in daylight. The great institutions of liberal America are falling to Trump like dominoes, one by one. CD April 7/BL April 8.
—Republished in Monthly Review Online, April 9, 2025.
Living in the Upside-Down. US in meltdown, Palestine genocide back on, West very concerned. CD March 21/BL March 25.
Trump’s second coming. The first six weeks. CD March 10.
2024
One law for the West and another for the rest? A presidential pardon and the killing fields of Gaza. CD December 10/BLDecember 30.
I’m speaking! (and you’re not). Nowhere was the suppression of Palestinian voices and erasure of the Gaza genocide more evident than in Harris’s campaign. CD November 21/BL November 22.
Not even the main event. As America votes, the genocide in Gaza goes on—and on and on. CD November 4/BL November 5.
Is the West finally seeing sense on Gaza? The Blinken-Austin letter could be a game-changer, or just another electoral gimmick. CD October 15/BL October 16.
Our dead don’t seem to count the same way. ‘Unwavering support’ versus ‘ironclad commitment’—a tale of two strategies. CD October 1/BL October 3.
States of exception. Is it ‘antisemitic’ to accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza? CD August 28/BL August 30.
The measure of our evil. Observations on the deadliest attack on the Palestinian people since the Nakba. CD August 5/BL August 7.
First we take Manhattan. The student protests and the Gaza genocide. CD May 1/BL May 2.
All the perfumes of Arabia. Israel’s human targeting software and the banality of evil. CD April 18.
Powerful stories. Facts, fictions, and fabrications regarding Israel’s ‘Black Sabbath.’ CD April 2/BL April 3.
The threshold of intent. Closing in on a ‘final solution’ in Gaza. CD March 26.
A moral crossroads for the West. Is Benjamin Netanyahu about to cross his Rubicon? CD March 14.
An extreme act of protest. Aaron Bushnell, Jan Palach, and resisting the normalization of the unthinkable. CD March 3/BLMarch 5.
Is the tide turning on Israel? CD, February 21.
Eyeless in Gaza. Paratexts, Contexts, and the Weaponization of October 7. CD, February 9.
A clarifying moment. Canada and the ICJ ruling on genocide in Gaza. CD January 30.
—French translation, Presse-toi à gauche, February 6.
Articles on Czech topics
2004. In Search of Bohemia. BBC Music Magazine supplement, A Companion to the 2004 BBC Proms, pp. 12-15.
2022. Prague’s infinite shades of gray. Princeton University Press Ideas blog, November 10.
2022. The density of unexpected encounters. Britské listy, November 1.
2018. Sudeten ghosts. CEE New Perspectives blog, January 29.
2017. Iron Curtains of the mind. With Benjamin Tallis. Open Democracy, November 6.
2017. Between Karel Čapek and a Hard Brexit. CEE New Perspectives blog, 16 June.
2016. Prejudice, hysteria, and a want of political leadership: of refugees and November 17 in Prague. CEE New Perspectives blog, January 8.
2014. Why I love the Prague coffee-house Kafka didn’t frequent. Zócalo Public Square, May 13.
2013. A scandal in Bohemia, New York Times, Op-Ed, July 10, page A-23, and International Herald Tribune, July 11. Subsequently republished on History News Network and elsewhere.
Articles on UK Higher Education
2015. Why did REF 2014 cost three times as much as the RAE? Hint: It’s not just because of the added impact element. LSE Impact blog, August 3.
2015. The REF: why did it cost so much? Times Higher Education, July 30.
2015. A whole lotta cheatin’ going on? REF stats revisited. CDBU blog, February 1.
2014. One scholar’s crusade against the REF. Times Higher Education, December 11.
2014. Problems with peer review for the REF. CDBU blog, November 21.
2014. Time to abandon the gold standard? Peer review for the REF falls far short of internationally accepted standards. LSE Impact blog, November 19.
2013. April Fool’s Day: RCUK adds fuel to the Open Access fire. coastsofbohemia blog, March 7, reposted on Substack.
2013. More on Open Access: HEFCE brings out the big REF stick. coastsofbohemia blog, March 4, reposted on Substack.
2013. Albert Einstein’s Miraculous Year, the British Government, and Open Access. coastsofbohemia blog, January 31, reposted on Substack.
Photoessays
2024. Unexpected encounters. 18 posts, Substack, Feb 2–April 1. Also on my Camera lucida website.
2018. Athens aesthetics. In Craig Campbell and Yoke-Sum Wong (eds), Ex Situ: (Un)making space out of place, exh. cat., reposted on coastsofbohemia blog, 11 May 2019.
2014. Austin in available light. The End of Austin, Issue 5, May 22.
Other occasional writings
2024. Lifting the curtain on the 20th century: the metamorphoses of Richard Strauss. Substack, August 9.
2018. 10 x 10 (elegy for an America that is only partly imagined). coastsofbohemia blog, June 13. Reposted on Substack.
2018. Response to questionnaire “Schizophrenie, est-il une solution?” Alienist II (Prague), pp. 76-8.
2017. Talkin’ ’bout My Generation. coastsofbohemia blog, December 31. Reposted on Substack.
1981. Bolshevism and the USSR. New Left Review I/125, January-February 1981. With Philip Corrigan and Harvie Ramsay.
I have also published book reviews, review essays, and other pieces in Capital and Class, Common Knowledge, The Guardian, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, Journal of Historical Sociology, Journal of Peasant Studies, Sociology, and Times Higher Education.
Journal special issue
New Perspectives Vol. 26, No. 2(S), 2018, was a special issue devoted to my work. It contains:
Introduction and excerpts from The Coasts of Bohemia
Introduction and excerpts from Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century
Surrealist Prague
Great Arches Viewed from the Coasts of Bohemia
Between Karel Capek and a Hard Brexit
Sudeten Ghosts
Iron Curtains of the Mind
Prejudice, Hysteria and A Failure of Political Leadership
PRESENTATIONS (selected)
Keynotes and public lectures
Prague at the End of History. The Prague Address, for the European International Studies Association (EISA) 12th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, Prague, September 12, 2018.
Making Trouble: Surrealism and the Human Sciences. Articulations: Lectures in Art Appreciation, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, 20 April 2017.
Regions of Memory: Texas/Berlin. Keynote, Genealogies of Memory: Memory Regions as Discourse and Imagination conference, University of Warsaw, 17 March 2016.
The Chance Encounter of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella on a Statistical Table: Notes on Surrealism and Sociology. Annual Methods Lab Lecture, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 6 March 2015.
The REF and the State of Higher Education Today. Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 8 December 2014.
Unexpected Resonances: from Praha to Marfa. Marfa Book Company, Crowley Theater, Marfa, Texas, 12 April 2014.
Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century: A Surrealist History—A Book Talk. Institute for Historical Studies and Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Texas at Austin, February 27, 2014.
Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century. Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague, 25 June 2013.
All the Beauties of the World: Modernism, as Seen from Twentieth-century Prague. Keynote, Global Art History and the Peripheries Challenge conference, École Normale Supérieure and Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, Paris, June 12-14, 2013.
Images, Histories, States: England and Bohemia Compared. History Department, Peking University, Beijing, 5 April 2012.
Love, War, and the Songs of Exile: Prague-on-Seine 1938-1940. Masaryk Annual Lecture, Czech Embassy, London, November 2011.
How We Remember and What We Forget: Cold War Art Histories and the Prewar Czech Avant-garde. Institute for Historical Studies, University of Texas at Austin, April 2011.
Anamneses. Keynote, Ethnographic Dreamworlds, Buffalo, NY, April 2006.
Architectures of Erasure: Mies, MoMA, and Corbu in Prague. School of Architecture Lecture Series, McGill University, Montréal, November 2003.
The Architecture of Forgetting: The Trade Fair Palace in Prague. Distinguished Lecture, Czech Cultural Studies Workshop, University of Michigan—Ann Arbor, March 2003.
Czechness in Music. Great Performers series, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York City, April 2001.
Memoirs in Search of a Subject. Keynote, Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association Congress 2000, University of Alberta, 2000.
Prague as a Capital for Modernity. Public lecture in series to inaugurate Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Victoria, 1998.
Prague and Modernity. Kaspar Naegele Memorial Lecture, University of British Columbia, 1997. Prague as a Vantage-Point on Modern European History. Keynote, New Directions in European History conference, Middle Eastern Technical University, Ankara, October 1994.
Everyday Forms of State Formation. Keynote, Popular Culture, State Formation, and the Mexican Revolution conference, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, UC–San Diego, March 1991.
State Formation in Turner’s Britain. Tate Gallery, London, in series Turner’s Times, April 1987.
Conference papers
American Surreal. Ex situ symposium, Anthropology Department, University of Texas at Austin, 9 April 2014.
“Ce monde en dérive …”: miscommunications on the Prague-Paris surrealist telephone. Royal Historical Society symposium Edges of Europe: Frontiers in Context, Lancaster University, June 2011.
Surreal(ist) Prague. Prague as Represented Space conference, Universität Regensburg, May 2011.
The Absent Center: Czech Avant-gardes and the Canons of Forgetting. Inhabited Ruins: Textures of Central Europe in Historical Perspective conference, Lancaster University, May 2010.
A Choice of Abdications: André Breton, Paul Éluard, and Prague. Annual Czech Cultural Studies Workshop, University of Michigan—Ann Arbor, April 2006.
Ceci n’est-pas un con: Duchamp, Lacan and L’Origine du monde. Marcel Duchamp et l’érotisme conference, Université d’Orléans, December 2005.
Doll Parts, or, The Subject Reconfigured from the Point of View of the Mannequin. Public Proofs: Science, Technology, Democracy conference, European Association for the Study of Science and Technology, Paris, August 2004.
Great Arches Viewed from the Coasts of Bohemia. American Anthropology Association annual conference, Chicago, November 2003.
Surrealities. Los Angeles County Museum of Art symposium Exhibiting Central European Modernism, University of California—Los Angeles, June 1999.
Contemporaneities. State, Colony, Empire conference, Saint Peter’s College, Oxford University, March 1997.
The Amritsar Massacre and British Responses, 1919-1920. How Colonization Shaped Europe and
Europe’s New Worlds conference, Claremont Colleges, California, April 1989. This paper was also given at the ASA annual meetings in Washington D.C., August 1990.
From the Body Politic to the National Interest: Reflections on The Great Arch. Mellon Symposium on Historical Anthropology, Culture and Colonialism: Deployments of Power and Resistance, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, May 1987.
Papers to Discussion Group on the State, meeting annually at Saint Peter’s College, Oxford,
from 1982-2002, at 1982, 1989, 1991 and 1995 meetings. Co-organizer of group 1982-1996.
I have also given invited talks at the universities of Birmingham, Bradford, British Columbia, Calgary, California–San Diego, Chicago, East Anglia, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Harvard, Hull, Illinois–Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Kent, Leeds, London (Institute of Education), London School of Economics, Manchester, New School for Social Research, New York University, North Carolina–Chapel Hill, Northwestern, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Oxford, Toronto, and Warwick.
RESEARCH FUNDING
2009-11. Royal Society/British Academy. Newton International Fellowship, UK academic sponsor. £99,000 for project The Ruins of Mitteleuropa.
2008-9. Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK). Research Leave (two terms). £33,000 to support writing-up of Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century.
2001-5. Canadian Foundation for Innovation. $125,000 to establish Visual Culture Research Laboratory (since renamed Intermedia Research Studio) at University of Alberta.
2000-3. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canada, Interdisciplinary Studies Committee. $24,000 for project The Arts of Modernity.
1996-9. SSHRC, History Committee. $35,000 for project Prague and Modernity.
1991-94. SSHRC, Sociology Committee. $47,000 for project Prague 1848-1990.
1986-8. British Academy. £10,000 for project Bastardy in English History.
TEACHING AND SUPERVISION
I taught courses in sociology and history at all levels from first year BA to PhD at the Universities of Glasgow, Alberta, and Lancaster, and as a visiting scholar at OISE and the University of Dar es Salaam. I supervised numerous BA and MA dissertations over the course of my career. I have also worked in both design and delivery of distance education.
Undergraduate courses
History of photography
Prague 1750-1989
Social Theory
Historical Sociology
Sociology of Art
Urban Sociology
Historical Memory
Built Environments
Graduate courses
Historical Methods
Cultural History
Sociological Theory
The Visual Image
Prague and Modernity
Sociology of the State
I also taught at the International Graduate Summer School on “Memory, Culture and Identity” at Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic, 19-29 June 2013.
In Alberta I offered introductory sociology courses in the University’s off-campus program from 1987 through 1999, at Blue Quills First Nations College in St Paul, Yellowhead Tribal Council in Edmonton, and Maskwachees Cultural College.
Distance education
I tutored part-time for the Open University (UK) in Scotland in the early 1980s.
In 1992-3 I was commissioned as course consultant to develop the study guide for a new distance-learning course on power and inequality for Athabasca University. Amounting in effect to a substantial textbook, this was published, together with an accompanying book of selected readings, as The Sociology of Power and Inequality, Athabasca University Press, 1993. 221 pp.
PhD and postdoctoral supervision
I have supervised 13 PhDs to completion (3 at Glasgow, 7 at Alberta, 3 at Lancaster). Eleven of my PhD students subsequently obtained full-time university positions in Canada (Windsor, Athabasca, Trent), the UK (Paisley, Bristol, Newcastle, Edinburgh), New Zealand (Massey),Tanzania (Dar Es Salaam), Bangladesh (Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka), and the USA (U of Texas at Austin). Six converted their theses into books (Blackwell, Routledge [3], McGill-Queens University Press, University of Minnesota Press). Six of the seven eligible students I supervised at Alberta received SSHRC doctoral scholarships.
In Alberta I sat on over 40 supervisory committees for PhD students across Sociology, History, and cognate disciplines.
I was the UK sponsor and supervisor for the Newton International Fellowship held by my former Alberta PhD student Dariusz Gafijczuk at Lancaster University from 2009-11. This fellowship eventuated inter alia in the conference and subsequent book The Inhabited Ruins of Central Europe.
ADMINISTRATION (selected)
Lancaster University
2010-13. Member of University Finance and General Purposes Committee.
2009-12. Head, Department of History.
2007-10. Member of Academic Board, Lancaster Institute of Advanced Studies.
University of Alberta
1996-2000. Chair, Department of Sociology.
1994-2000. Member (first as an elected faculty representative, then as department chair) of the Faculty Evaluation Committee.
Member of University Graduate Scholarships and Awards Committee. Elected member of General Faculties Council.
SERVICE (selected)
Joint managing editor, Journal of Historical Sociology, 1988-2022. I was the founding editor of this journal, which was published quarterly by Wiley (formerly by Blackwell).
Senior editor, New Perspectives: Interdisciplinary Journal of Central and East European Politics and International Relations, 2014-2019.
Member of editorial board, Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change, 2018 onward.
External assessor of research grant applications for Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in both sociology and history.
Member of SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowships Committee 3 (Anthropology, Archaeology, Criminology, Folklore, Sociology), 2013-14.
External progress assessor (involving on-site inspection and a substantial report) on $5m SSHRC Major Collaborative Research Initiatives project, 2002.
Reviewer of research grant proposals for European Research Council, Austrian Science Foundation, and Czech Science Foundation.
External assessor of tenure and/or promotion cases for Brock University (Professor); University of California—Davis (tenure); University of Chicago (tenure); Concordia University (Professor); Harvard University (Associate Professor; Professor); London School of Economics (Senior Lecturer); University of Michigan (tenure and promotion to Associate Professor); University of New Brunswick (Professor); University of Ottawa (Professor); Trent University (tenure and promotion to Associate Professor); University of Western Ontario (Professor); Wright State University (tenure and promotion to Associate Professor).
Reviewer of book manuscripts for Princeton University Press, Cornell University Press, Duke University Press, Open University Press, Stanford University Press, Blackwell, Routledge, Macmillan, and Bloomsbury Academic Press.
Reviewer of article submissions for American Ethnologist, American Journal of Sociology, Canadian Journal of History, Canadian Journal of Law and Society, Canadian Journal of Sociology, Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, Capital and Class, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Public Art Dialogue, Sociology, and Sociological Review.
External examiner for PhDs at the Universities of British Columbia, Calgary, Dar Es Salaam, La Trobe (Melbourne), Manchester, New York University, the University of Toronto, and Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
MEDIA (selected)
Acceptance speech at Jewish Canadian Literary Awards 2023 for Postcards from Absurdistan.
Prague: Inhabited Ruins of Central Europe: Derek Sayer in conversation with Robert Kusek and Aleksandra Szczepan. Herito(Krakow), No. 22-23, 2016, pp. 286-297.
New Books in East European Studies. Interview with Amanda Swain on Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century (podcast). 24 July 2015.
BBC Radio 4 “Thinking Aloud” (discussion with Laurie Taylor on “Grading universities—The rights and wrongs of the Research Excellence Framework”). 14 January 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04xrl8f
Lisette Allen, “Talking Czech surrealism, chlebíčky with the author of Prague: Capital of the Twentieth Century.” Expats.cz interview, 14 January 2014.
Radio Prague “One on One” (interview on Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century). 15 July 2013. http://www.radio.cz/en/section/one-on-one/prague-history-mirrors-20th-century-europe-says- professor-derek-sayer
BBC Radio 3 “Night Waves” (feature and interview on Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century). 23 May 2013. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01shytq
October 2025
coasts of bohemia 