Books by Derek Sayer

Surrealism was not merely an artistic movement to its adherents but an "instrument of knowledge," an attempt to transform the way we see the world by unleashing the unconscious as a radical, new means of constructing reality. Born out of the crisis of civilization brought about by World War I, it presented a sustained challenge to scientific rationalism as a privileged mode of knowing. In certain ways, surrealism's critique of white, Western civilization anticipated many later attempts at producing alternate non-Eurocentric epistemologies. With Making Trouble, sociologist and cultural historian Derek Sayer explores what it might mean to take surrealism's critique of civilization seriously. Drawing on a remarkable range of sources, Sayer first establishes surrealism as an important intellectual antecedent to the study of the human sciences today. He then makes a compelling and well-written argument for rethinking surrealism as a contemporary methodological resource for all those who still look to the human sciences not only as a way to interpret the world, but also to change it.

Artfully combining memoir with social theory, this bold sociological experiment shows how our memories work, and gives them social meaning.

The author has been involved in a dispute with his employer, Lancaster University, about what he sees as irregularities in the REF process. In this title, he criticizes the REF for discouraging innovation and harming staff morale, and questions the REF's claim to provide 'expert review of the outputs' - the very heart of its legitimacy.

A re-assessment of the opinions of Karl Marx and Max Weber on modernity, this book reveals a remarkable agreement between their sociologies of the modern condition. The author suggests that they produced a critique of the nature of power and subjectivity in modern society.

Presents a comprehensive history of the Czech people that is a remarkably original history of modern Europe. This book describes how Bohemia's ambiguities and contradictions are those of Europe itself, and it considers the ironies of viewing Europe, the West, and modernity from the vantage point of a country that has been too often ignored.