Culture

Authors Meet Critics

Recap

Published December 7, 2016

Arlie Hochschild, “Strangers in Their Own Land”

On November 30, 2016, UC Berkeley's Social Science Matrix welcomed Arlie Russell Hochschild, Professor Emerita of Sociology, for a discussion of her new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.

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Other Events

Recap

Published November 1, 2016

Viet Thanh Nguyen: “Beyond Victims and Voices: On Writing as a Radical Act”

Video is now available of the October 28 presentation by Viet Thanh Nguyen, an alumnus of the UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies program whose novel, The Sympathizer, is a New York Times bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

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Grants and Opportunities

News

Published October 10, 2016

Matrix Welcomes 2016-2017 Dissertation Fellows

Social Science Matrix is honored to welcome our inaugural group of Matrix Dissertation Fellows, five Ph.D. students whose research has strong potential to generate effective solutions to critical global challenges.

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Interview

Article

Published September 6, 2016

Karen Barkey: “Shared Sacred Sites”

Dr. Karen Barkey, a sociologist joining UC Berkeley in Fall 2016, directs the Shared Sacred Sites initiative, which uses digital humanities methods to present fieldwork on sacred sites shared by different religious communities.

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Interview

Article

Published May 23, 2016

Mazda Farias-Virgens: “Birdsong and Human Language”

UC Berkeley anthropology graduate student Madza Farias-Virgens draws upon research into birdsong and genome sequencing to address questions related to the evolution of human language.

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Interview

Article

Published May 10, 2016

Katherine Zubovich: “A Towering Legacy”

In her dissertation, Katherine Zubovich, a Ph.D. candidate in Russian and Soviet History at UC Berkeley, examines the history of a 1950s skyscraper project in Moscow.

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Interview

Article

Published March 10, 2016

John Ohala: “Vocal Fry and the “Frequency Code””

John J. Ohala, Professor Emeritus at UC Berkeley, explores a plausible connection between lion manes and the creaky-voice phenomenon known as "vocal fry".

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Interview

Article

Published March 1, 2016

P[art]icipatory Urbanisms: Arts of the Global City

An innovative collaboration by UC Berkeley graduate students explores the interplay between art and politics, with a focus on practitioners in New Delhi and São Paulo.

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Grants and Opportunities

Published October 4, 2015

Hanks Receives Staley Book Prize

Congratulations to William F. Hanks, UC Berkeley Distinguished Chair in Linguistic Anthropology and Director of Social Science Matrix, for receiving the 2015 J.I. Staley Book Prize, one of the most prestigious prizes in the field of anthropology.

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Interview

Published September 22, 2015

Robin T. Lakoff: “What’s Up With Upspeak?”

The linguistic phenomenon known as “upspeak” has long been linked to a broader pattern of gender relations, thanks to the work of UC Berkeley’s Robin T. Lakoff, Professor Emerita in the Department of Linguistics.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published July 1, 2015

Speech on the Brain

A UCSF neuroscientist and UC Berkeley linguist team up for leading-edge research that could one day help give speech back to stroke victims and people with paralyses.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published June 1, 2015

Tribal Tongues

After nearing extinction, California Indian languages are gaining new speakers—and a digital presence—with the help of UC Berkeley’s Linguistics Department.

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