Culture

Matrix On Point

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Event Date: April 20th, 2023
12pm-1:30pm Pacific

Matrix on Point: Border Crossing

Changing economic and legal circumstances alongside humanitarian crises are shifting the politics and histories of borders today, and reshaping the interdisciplinary field of border studies. Join us on April 20 for a Matrix on Point panel featuring a group of UC Berkeley PhD candidates sharing their ongoing research on borders and migration.

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Matrix Lecture

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Event Date: May 1st, 2023
4pm-5:30pm

Orlando Patterson: “Slavery and Genocide: The U.S, Jamaica and the Historical Sociology of Evil”

Please join us on May 1 at 4pm for a Matrix Distinguished Lecture by Orlando Patterson, John Cowles Professor of Sociology at Harvard University. The title of Professor Patterson's lecture will be “Slavery and Genocide: The U.S, Jamaica and the Historical Sociology of Evil.” Stephen Best, Professor of English at UC Berkeley and Director of the Townsend Center for the Humanities, will be the discussant.

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Authors Meet Critics

Recap

Published March 21, 2023

To Defend This Sunrise: Black Women’s Activism and the Authoritarian Turn in Nicaragua

Recorded on March 7, 2023, this Authors Meet Critics panel focused on "To Defend This Sunrise: Black Women’s Activism and the Authoritarian Turn in Nicaragua," by Courtney Desiree Morris, Assistant Professor and Vice Chair of Research in Gender and Women’s Studies at UC Berkeley. Morris was joined in conversation by Tianna Paschel, Associate Professor in the UC Berkeley Department of African American Studies. The panel was moderated by Lok Siu, Chair of the Asian American Research Center and Professor of Ethnic Studies and Asian American/Asian Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley.

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Authors Meet Critics

Recap

Published March 21, 2023

Cooperating with the Colossus: A Social and Political History of US Military Bases in World War II Latin America

Watch a video (or listen to the podcast) of an Authors Meet Critics book panel focused on "Cooperating with the Colossus: A Social and Political History of US Military Bases in World War II Latin America," by Rebecca Herman, Assistant Professor of History at UC Berkeley. Professor Herman was joined in conversation by Julio Moreno, Professor of History at the University of San Francisco, and José Juan Pérez Meléndez, Assistant Professor in Latin American and Caribbean History at UC Davis, and a Bridging the Divides Fellow at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies in Hunter College. Elena Schneider, Associate Professor in the UC Berkeley Department of History, moderated.

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Matrix Lecture

Recap

Published March 1, 2023

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar: Reimagining Global Integration

Recorded on February 15, 2023, this Matrix Distinguished Lecture featured Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, presenting a talk entitled "Reimagining Global Integration." A former justice of the Supreme Court of California, Justice Cuéllar served two U.S. presidents at the White House and in federal agencies, and was a faculty member at Stanford University for two decades. Watch a video of the lecture — or listen to the recording.

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Podcast

Interview

Published February 14, 2023

The Scandal of Access: An Interview with Zahra Hayat

Listen to an episode of the Matrix Podcast featuring Zahra Hayat, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, who obtained her PhD in Anthropology at UC Berkeley. Matrix Content Curator Julia Sizek spoke with Hayat about her research on pharmaceutical access in the global South, particularly in Pakistan, and the regimes of price and property on which such access is contingent.

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Authors Meet Critics

Recap

Published December 1, 2022

Authors Meet Critics: How the Clinic Made Gender

Watch a video (or listen to a podcast) of our recent “Authors Meet Critics” panel on "How the Clinic Made Gender: The Medical History of a Transformative Idea," by Sandra Eder, Associate Professor of History at UC Berkeley. Eder was joined in conversation by Laura Nelson, Danya Lagos, and Catherine Ceniza Choy.

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Authors Meet Critics

Recap

Published November 3, 2022

Keeping It Unreal: Black Queer Fantasy and Superhero Comics

Recorded on October 14, 2022, this Authors Meet Critics panel focused on the book "Keeping It Unreal: Black Queer Fantasy and Superhero Comics," by Darieck Scott, Professor of African American Studies at UC Berkeley. Scott was joined in conversation by Ula Taylor and Scott Bukatman, with Greg Niemeyer moderating.

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Podcast

Interview

Published October 25, 2022

Migration and Reform in Early America: An Interview with J.T. Jamieson

What role did American social and moral reformers play in managing human migrations? Listen to (or read) our Matrix Podcast interview with J.T. Jamieson, a PhD Candidate in UC Berkeley’s History Department, who examines how social reformers in the first half of the 19th century sought to control migration and insert their own understandings of morality, social benevolence, and humanitarianism into the lives and experiences of migrants.

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Authors Meet Critics

Recap

Published October 12, 2022

Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley

Recorded on September 30, 2022, this Matrix “Author Meets Critics” panel focused on the book "Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley," by Carolyn Chen, Associate Professor in the UC Berkeley Department of Ethnic Studies. Professor Chen was joined in conversation by Arlie Hochschild, Professor Emerita in the UC Berkeley Department of Sociology, and Morgan Ames, Assistant Professor of Practice in the UC Berkeley School of Information and Associate Director of Research for the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society. The conversation was moderated by Marion Fourcade, Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley and Director of Social Science Matrix. The event was co-sponsored by the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion and the Berkeley Culture Center.

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Article

Podcast

Published September 30, 2022

The Rise of Mass Incarceration: An Interview with Chris Muller and Alex Roehrkasse

On this episode of the Matrix Podcast, Julia Sizek spoke with two UC Berkeley scholars whose work focuses on explaining how mass incarceration has changed over the last 30 years. Alex Roehrkasse is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Butler University. He studies the production of racial, class, and gender inequality in the […]

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Article

Interview

Published August 31, 2022

The Effects of Reparations: A Visual Interview with Arlen Guarin

What are the impacts of reparations on the lives of victims of violence? Read our visual interview with Arlen Guarin, a PhD Candidate in Economics at UC Berkeley, who studies the effects of policies that aim to reduce poverty and inequality, including reparations given to victims of human rights violations in Colombia.

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Podcast

Interview

Published August 31, 2022

A Changing Landscape for Farmers in India: An Interview with Aarti Sethi and Tanya Matthan

In this episode of the Matrix Podcast, Julia Sizek spoke with two UC Berkeley scholars – Aarti Sethi and Tanya Matthan – who study agrarian life in India, where farmers have been forced to adapt to the rise of pesticides, genetically modified seeds, and other technologies.

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Article

Interview

Published August 30, 2022

How Climate Change Became a Security Emergency: An Interview with Brittany Meché

How has climate change become an international security problem? In this interview, Brittany Meché, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and Affiliated Faculty in Science and Technology Studies at Williams College, discusses her research on how expert explanations of climate migration rework the afterlives of empire in the West African Sahel.

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