Past Events

This Matrix on Point panel will focus on today's remarkable political moment, marked both by a new kind of women's activism (centered on #MeToo and related movements) and by the rise of a misogynistic far-right. Panelists will explore the role that digital mediations, from social media to video games, play in this cultural complex. Featuring Sarah Sobieraj, Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Tufts University; CJ Pascoe, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon; Julia Ebner, radicalisation researcher and bestselling writer; and Kishonna L. Gray, Associate Professor in the Writing, Rhetoric, Digital Studies program at the University of Kentucky. Moderated by Raka Ray, Dean of the Division of Social Sciences at UC Berkeley.

The UC Berkeley Department Department cordially invites you to attend the launch event in celebration of its 100th anniversary. This event will feature “lightning talks” – short form-presentations – from four distinguished members of the faculty, showcasing the exciting research being conducted in this top-ranked department. In addition to illustrating the cutting-edge science of Berkeley Psychology, the program will also make clear the relevance of the department's work to addressing some of the most pressing issues confronting us today. 

Join us on December 3, 12pm PST for an "Authors Meet Critics" discussion focused on "The Banks Did It: An Anatomy of the Financial Crisis," by Neil Fligstein, Class of 1939 Chancellor's Professor in the UC Berkeley Department of Sociology. Professor Fligstein will be joined in conversation by Adam Tooze, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History at Columbia University and author of "Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World." Register in advance to attend this online event.

The increasing number of extreme flood events makes it necessary to shift our current management approaches, which are largely based on past flooding frequencies that may no longer hold true. But how do different countries include climate change in flood risk assessment, mapping, and management? In this webinar we will discuss this topic with experts from the EU and the U.S. by looking at examples from two EU member states, Sweden and Spain, and the State of California and the City of Miami in the United States.

On November 17, two representatives from the Office of Foundation Relations and Corporate Philanthropy — Sylvia Bierhuis, Executive Director, and David Siegfried, Director — will join Social Science Matrix to discuss the pursuit of research and programmatic support from private foundations interested in the social sciences.

The Berkeley Cannabis Research Center hosts monthly webinars focused on the intersection of cannabis policy, cannabis producing communities, and the environment. On November 17, the webinar will focus on the topic, "Agriculture, Labor, and Markets." Panelists include: Amber Senter, Supernova Women, Workforce Development Initiative; Stella Beckham, UC Davis, Center for Health & the Environment; Keith Taylor, UC Davis, Department of Human Ecology; and Eduardo Blanco, Agriculture Labor Relations Board, Special Counsel. Moderated by: Hekia Bodwitch, Dalhousie University & Berkeley CRC.

Please join us on November 16, 2021 from 9:30am-11am Pacific for an "Authors Meet Critics" book panel on "Shareholder Cities: Land Transformations along Urban Corridors in India," by Sai Balakrishnan, Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley, with a joint appointment with DCRP and Global Metropolitan Studies. Professor Balakrishnan will be joined in conversation by Sharad Chari, Associate Professor of Geography at UC Berkeley, and Michael Watts, Class of ‘63  and Chancellor’s Professor of Geography Emeritus, UC Berkeley.

Join us on Wednesday, November 10th from 1-2pm Pacific for a panel discussion on how changing wildfires have changed not only how fires are fought, but who fights them. The panel will include Brandon Smith, Co-founder and Chief Director of the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program (FFRP); Jameson Karns, a former firefighter and a PhD Candidate in History at UC Berkeley; and Lindsey Raisa Feldman, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Memphis. Moderated by John Radke, a faculty member in the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley.

We still do not have a sufficient understanding of the moral political economy of machine learning and other algorithmic forms of decision making. In a new working paper, Henry Farrell and Marion Fourcade, Director of Social Science Matrix, argue that both machine learning and traditional bureaucracies are engines of classification, so that our current moral political economy can be compared to the 19th and 20th century "High Modernism" described by James C. Scott in his classic book, "Seeing Like a State." Join Farrell and Fourcade in an online roundtable discussion with danah boyd, William Janeway, Charlton McIlwain, and Zeynep Tufekci, renowned scholars and thinkers directly engaged with issues surrounding the moral political economy of technology. Presented by Stanford University's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS).

Join the Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research on November 4, 2021 from 2pm-4pm Pacific, when a panel of distinguished experts will analyze the implications for the future of our politics and society of new Census data showing a changing ethnic composition of the United States, the rapid growth of mixed marriages, and more people identifying as multiracial. Panelists include: Richard Alba, the Graduate Center, City University of New York; Rodney Hero, Arizona State University; Jennifer L. Hochschild, Harvard University; and Karthick Ramakrishnan, UC Riverside. Moderated by Gabriel Lenz, UC Berkeley.

Professor Clifford Ando, David B. and Clara E. Stern Professor of Humanities and Professor of Classics, History, and Law, University of Chicago, will address the specific dynamics of religion and politics in Roman republics, both in the city of Rome itself and in communities founded along Roman lines. Presented by the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion with generous support from the Henry Luce Foundation, co-sponsored by the Townsend Center for the Humanities.

Religion, as we know it, is being reframed, reshaped, and even replaced. This panel will focus on how digital technologies are transforming both religious doctrines and practices in contemporary society. Panelists include: Steven Barrie-Anthony, Research Associate at the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion; Kelsy Burke, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Erika Gault, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies from the University of Arizona; and Heather Mellquist Lehto, Postdoctoral Fellow with Arizona State University's Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict. Moderated by Carolyn Chen, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley.