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Professor Satnam Virdee FBA

The historical sociology of capitalism and racism since 1492; counter hegemonic social movements and the utopian impulse in modernity; historical materialism and social theory; the conjunctural politics of class and racialization in Britain since 1945.
Headshot of Professor Satnam Virdee FBA
Fellow type
UK Fellow
Year elected
2025
Honours
FBA, FRSE
Sections
Sociology, Demography and Social Statistics
Website
https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/staff/satnamvirdee/

Summary

Satnam Virdee is Professor of Sociology, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Glasgow. He has held the position since 2005.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Since 2017-present, he has been Co-editor (with J. Solomos and A. Winter) of the 'Racism, Resistance and Social Change' book series, published by Manchester University Press.

From 2017-2021, he was an Expert Panel Member, Research Excellence Framework (REF), 2021, Sub-panel 21 (Sociology).


From 2013-2018, Virdee was Deputy Director, ESRC Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE), Universities of Glasgow and Manchester. And from 2005 to 2020 he was Director, Centre for Research on Racism, Ethnicity and Nationalism (CRREN), University of Glasgow.

Virdee's books include 'Britain in fragments: Why things are falling apart' (with B. McGeever, 2023) and 'Racism, class and the racialized outsider' (Basingstoke: Palgrave).

His published articles include

  • 'Racism and state formation in the age of absolutism' ('Historical Materialism', 31: 2: 104-135)
  • 'The lines of descent of the present crisis' ('Sociological Review', 71:2: 458-476); 'Racialized capitalism: An account of its contested origins and consolidation'. ('Sociological Review', 67:1: 3-27)
  • 'Racism, crisis, Brexit' (with B. McGeever, 'Ethnic and Racial Studies', 41:10: 1802-1819)
  • 'The second sight of racialized outsiders in the imperialist core' ('Third World Quarterly', 38:11: 2396-2410)
  • 'Socialist antisemitism and its discontents in England, 1884–98' ('Patterns of Prejudice', 51:3-4: 356-373)

Current post

University of Glasgow Professor of Sociology

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