Past Events

Please join us on Tuesday, April 21 for a lecture by Simone Zhang, Assistant Professor of Sociology at New York University. Zhang's research examines how classification systems, predictive models, and AI shape the distribution of benefits, burdens, and recognition in society. Much of her work focuses on the implications of these systems for institutional decision-making in social policy, education, and law.

The Authors Meet Critics panel on the book "Demos: How the People Ruled Athens," by Daniela Cammack, Assistant Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley, has been postponed. Stay tuned to the Matrix website and newsletter for future updates.

Please join us on Thursday, April 9th from 12-1:30pm for an Authors Meet Critics panel on the book "Incommunicable: Toward Communicative Justice in Health and Medicine," by Charles Briggs, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. Professor Briggs will be joined in conversation by Elinor Ochs and Eric Snoey.

Amid shifting global dynamics and the rapid development of stablecoins and other digital assets, new questions are emerging around the structure and evolution of dollar hegemony. This panel will bring together scholars and industry voices to examine the foundation of US monetary influence and the role of financial innovation in an evolving global economy.

Join us for a panel on "The Insatiable Machine," by Professor Trevor Jackson, which traces capitalism’s development from the accidental construction of an international monetary system to the creation of banking, the emergence of a new form of slavery, fossil–fuel industrialization, and finally the global capitalist system spread by imperialism.

Please join us on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 at 1:30pm for a public lecture by Julien Migozzi, an economic geographer and Assistant Professor in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge. Professor Migozzie's lecture, "Algorithms of Distinction: Class, Credit Scores, and Property in South Africa," will explore how how digital, legal, and financial transformations have reorganized the housing market in Cape Town, South Africa.

Register to join us on March 11 at 4:00pm for the Matrix-BESI Open House. Co-organized by Social Science Matrix and the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative (BESI), this event is an opportunity to network with other members of the Berkeley social science community and learn more about our projects, events, and funding and research opportunities. Light bites and refreshments will be served. 

Colonial legacies continue to shape political, social, and intellectual life. While colonialism is often treated as a historical period, its structures and logics persist in contemporary debates around race, territory, knowledge, and power. This panel — part of the Social Science Matrix New Directions series — will bring together UC Berkeley graduate students from anthropology, geography, and sociology to examine how colonial histories are reproduced, contested, and reimagined across different contexts.

Matrix Teach-Ins bring UC Berkeley’s most engaging social science lectures into a public setting. Join us on February 19 as Ula Taylor, Professor and Chair of the Department of African American Studies & African Diaspora Studies, will present a Matrix Teach-In centered on an oral biography of Frances M.Beal.

This California Spotlight panel brings together leading scholars to examine the forces challenging public higher education today. Drawing on areas spanning finance, policy, and labor, the discussion will explore how these dynamics are shaping the UC system, and what is at stake for students, employees, the public, and the future of higher education.

In this workshop — presented by the Letters of the Sahara research team — we explore the question of how currencies and credit functioned in Saharan trade in the 18th and 19th centuries. Our sources are a number of commercial ledgers from different sites in the Sahara: Ghadames (Libya), Katsina (Nigeria) and Timbuktu (Mali). These documents are written in Arabic; we will read them in the original language and with English translations.

Join us on February 5th from 12pm-1:30pm for an Authors Meet Critics panel on the book "Co-Motion: Re-Thinking Power, Subjects, and Feminist and Queer Alliances," by Paola Bacchetta, Professor and Chair of the Department of Gender and Women's Studies at UC Berkeley. Professor Bacchetta will be joined in conversation by Roshanak Kheshti and Leti Volpp, with Lawrence Cohen moderating.