Podcast
Interview
Published April 12, 2022
What Happened to the Week? An Interview with David Henkin
For this episode of the Matrix podcast, Julia Sizek interviewed David M. Henkin, the Margaret Byrne Professor of History, about his book, The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms that Make Us Who We Are. With meticulous archival research that draws on a wide array of sources — including newspapers, restaurant menus, theater schedules, marriage records, school curricula, folklore, housekeeping guides, courtroom testimony, and diaries — Henkin reveals how our current devotion to weekly rhythms emerged in the United States during the first half of the 19th century.
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Interview
Published January 20, 2022
Individual Trauma, Social Outcomes: A Matrix Podcast Interview with Biz Herman
In this episode of the Matrix Podcast, Julia Sizek interviews Biz Herman, a PhD candidate in the UC Berkeley Department of Political Science, a Visiting Scholar at The New School for Social Research’s Trauma and Global Mental Health Lab, and a Predoctoral Research Fellow with the Human Trafficking Vulnerability Lab. The podcast focuses on Herman's research on mental health and social stability at the Za’atri Refugee Camp in Jordan, as well as her broader research on the impacts of individual trauma on community coherence.
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Interview
Published January 11, 2022
Science and Socialism in Cuba
In this episode of the Matrix podcast, Julia Sizek interviews Clare Ibarra, a PhD candidate in history, and Naomi Schoenfeld, a public health nurse practitioner and recent PhD from the joint UC San Francisco/UC Berkeley medical anthropology program. They discuss the history of science and medicine in Cuba and its relationship to the socialist project, as well as how Cuba has developed vaccines during the current pandemic.
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Interview
Published November 4, 2021
Genetic Ancestry Testing and Reconnection: An Interview with Dr. Victoria Massie
In this episode of the Matrix podcast, Julia Sizek, a PhD candidate in Anthropology at UC Berkeley, interviews Dr. Victoria Massie, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, and Faculty Affiliate for the Center for African & African American Studies (CAAAS), the Medical Humanities Program and the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality (CSWGS) at Rice University, in Houston. Sizek interviews Massie about her research tracking diasporic connections between the United States and Cameroon, and the wider world of genetic ancestry testing.
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Recap
Published October 14, 2021
Doing Academic Research with Amazon Mechanical Turk
Recorded on October 1, 2021, this panel brought together researchers to share their experience with the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform. Moderated by UC Berkeley psychology professor Serena Chen, the panel featured Ali Alkhatib, Interim director of the Center for Applied Data Ethics at the University of San Francisco; Stefano DellaVigna, Daniel Koshland, Sr. Distinguished Professor of Economics and Professor of Business Administration at UC Berkeley; and Gabriel Lenz, Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley.
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Interview
Published October 12, 2021
Politics of Indigeneity in El Salvador
In this episode of the Matrix podcast, Julia Sizek, PhD candidate in anthropology, interviews Hector Callejas, a PhD candidate in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley and a 2021-2022 ACLS/Mellon Dissertation Completion fellow. Sizek and Callejas discuss how Indigeneity is understood in El Salvador, as well as contemporary Indigenous movements in El Salvador.
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Interview
Published September 16, 2021
A New Voice for Black History: Xavier Buck, PhD
In this episode of the Matrix Podcast, Julia Sizek interviews Xavier Buck, Deputy Director of the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation. Buck graduated with a PhD in History from UC Berkeley in 2021. The discussion focuses on Buck’s work in public history, including his @historyin3 channel (which can be found on TikTok and Instagram), his current work at the Huey P. Newton Foundation, and his dissertation research, which shows connections between Black experiences in Louisiana and California in the 20th century.
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Interview
Published September 9, 2021
Matrix Podcast: Interview with Juliana Friend, PhD Candidate, Anthropology
In this podcast, Julia Sizek interviews Juliana Friend, a PhD candidate in the UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology, whose research focuses on the intersection of technology, privacy, and culture. Her dissertation, “Don’t Click Here! Porn, Privacy, and Digital Dissidence in Senegal,” examines how digital dissidents are transforming the idea of sutura (discretion or modesty), a concept used to describe the appropriate relationship between private and public life in Senegal.
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Interview
Published September 2, 2021
Matrix Podcast: The Past and Present of Teletherapy
In this episode of the Social Science Matrix podcast, Julia Sizek, a Phd candidate in the UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology, interviews scholars Hannah Zeavin and Valerie Black, UC Berkeley researchers who study the history and present of teletherapy, which describes all forms of remote therapy, from letter-writing to chatbots.
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Interview
Published April 12, 2021
Matrix Podcast: Interview with Rebecca Herman
In this podcast, Michael Watts interviews Rebecca Herman, Assistant Professor of History, UC Berkeley. Professor Herman's research and writing examine modern Latin American history in a global context. Her first book, forthcoming from Oxford University Press, reconstructs the history of U.S. military basing in Latin America during World War II.
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Interview
Published March 30, 2021
Matrix Podcast: Interview with Brittany Birberick
In this episode, Professor Michael Watts interviews Brittany Birberick, an anthropology PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley — and a former Matrix Dissertation Fellow. Birberick's dissertation project focuses on urban transformation in Johannesburg, South Africa. More broadly, she writes and thinks about economies, migration, temporality, and aesthetics within an urban context.
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Interview
Published February 13, 2021
Matrix Podcast: Interview with Clancy Wilmott
In this episode, Professor Michael Watts interviews Clancy Wilmott, Assistant Professor in Critical Cartography, Geovisualisation, and Design in the Berkeley Centre for New Media and the Department of Geography. Professor Wilmott comes to UC Berkeley from the Department of Geography at the University of Manchester, where she received her PhD in Human Geography with a multi-site study on the interaction between mobile phone maps, cartographic discourse, and postcolonial landscapes.
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