Past Events

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.

Join us on October 29 for a "Matrix on Point" panel discussion on forms of non-citizenship and marginalization around the world, with a focus on refugees, stateless people, and undocumented migrants. Co-sponsored by the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative (BIMI), panelists include Noora Lori, Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University; Itamar Mann, University of Haifa, Faculty of Law; Cecilia Menjívar, UCLA; and Serena Parekh, Northeastern University. Moderated by Irene Bloemraad, UC Berkeley.

On October 28, 2021, UC Berkeley's Townsend Center for the Humanities, Cal Performances, the Black Studies Collaboratory, and Social Science Matrix will present a conversation with Angélique Kidjo, focused on the global circulation of African musical forms and musicians, its worldwide significance, and its social power. Kidjo will be joined in conversation by Tianna Paschel, Associate Professor in the UC Berkeley Department of African American Studies; Ivy Mills, Lecturer, Visual and Literary Cultures of Africa and the African Diaspora; and Victoria Grubbs, Lecturer and Black Studies Collaboratory Postdoctoral Fellow.

Global Metropolitan Studies and Social Science Matrix invite you to a panel discussion: "Threading the interdisciplinary needle: Advancing your work across fields while maintaining your home base." Panelists include Marta Gonzalez, Civil Engineering and City & Regional Planning; Brandi Summers, Geography; and Desiree Fields, Geography. Register in advance to attend.

Contemporary movements like Black Lives Matter and the prison abolition movement point to the long histories of police violence and mass incarceration in the United States and elsewhere, demanding new approaches to approaching the history and present of policing. In this Matrix on Point presentation, panelists — including Kimberly Burke, Matthew Guariglia, Brie McLemore, and Eduardo Duran — will discuss the impacts of policing on the lives and health of officers and the communities they serve, as well as how contemporary policing practices are related to an unjust past.