Join us for a presentation by Anna Bigelow, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University, In the wake of the Hagia Sophia’s opening as a mosque in July 2020, many observers have drawn comparisons between Turkey’s assertion of ascendant religious nationalism through the use of sacred space and the breaking ground in August 2020 for the building of a Hindu temple at a contested site of a destroyed mosque in Ayodhya, India. The ruling political parties in both countries are redefining their constitutional secularism to prioritize the conservative religious sensibilities of their political bases and both have deployed sacred spaces as means of mobilizing and signaling their agendas to their constituents. Bigelow will discuss several key questions in these emerging case studies: Why are sacred sites so central in the public debates about the nature of the Turkish and Indian polities? How does the status of shared sacred space work to establish the status of religious minorities? Are their particular features of these sites (the Hagia Sophia and the Babri Masjid/Ramjanmabhumi in Ayodhya) that make them especially potent vectors for religious majoritarian politics? Does the erasure through destruction of the Ayodhya mosque create different possibilities for Hindu nationalist politics than does the more conservative (and conservation-oriented) approaches towards the Hagia Sophia undertaken by Muslim nationalists in Turkey? REGISTER HERE.

Please join us on Oct 13, 2020, from 12pm-1:30pm Pacific for an online panel on the book Let them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality, co-authored by Paul Pierson, the John Gross Endowed Chair and Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley, and Jacob Hacker, Stanley B. Resor Professor and Director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University. They will be joined by Theda Skocpol, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University, and Christopher Parker, Stuart A. Scheingold Professor of Social Justice and Political Science in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington. The discussion will be moderated by Irene Bloemraad, Class of 1951 Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley. RSVP HERE

In her book, Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of Race in a Post-Chocolate City, Brandi Thompson Summers, Assistant Professor of Geography and Global Metropolitan Studies at UC Berkeley, documents D.C.’s shift to a “post-chocolate” cosmopolitan metropolis by charting H Street’s economic and racial developments. Join us on October 7 as Thompson Summers will discuss the book with Nikki Jones, Professor in the Department of African American Studies at UC Berkeley. RSVP HERE

Western commentators have sometimes described Hong Kong as a canary in a coal mine, a bellwether for democracy in Asia. Yet for China, it is the concept of "one country, two systems" that best captures the enduring and complex bond that links Hong Kong to the mainland. This Matrix on Point, co-sponsored by the Center for Chinese Studies, considers both the history and future of Hong Kong’s democracy movement. Panelists include Ching Kwan Lee, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles; Alex Chow, a doctoral student in the UC Berkeley Department of Geography; and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chancellor's Professor of History at UC Irvine. Thomas Gold, Professor in the Graduate School at UC Berkeley, will moderate. REGISTER HERE

Please join us on September 21 for a virtual Matrix Distinguished Lecture by Katharina Pistor, Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law at Columbia University and Director of the Center on Global Legal Transformation. Professor Pistor will discuss her book, The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality, which argues that the law selectively “codes” certain assets, endowing them with the capacity to protect and produce private wealth. The book was lauded as one of the Financial Times' Best Books of 2019 in the field of economics and one of the Financial Times' Readers' Best Books of 2019. A Q&A will follow the lecture. This event is co-sponsored by the Berkeley Network for a New Political Economy. RSVP HERE

What are the institutional barriers contributing to homelessness in California, and what can be done to alleviate them? What are the consequences of the criminalization of the homeless and what are their rights and civil liberties? This online Matrix On Point panel discussion will explore the Bay Area’s housing crisis and homelessness by drawing upon the insights of researchers, advocates and  activists and medical practitioners. Register here

On June 18, 2020, The Supreme Court made the historic decision to uphold the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. That decision has, and will continue to have, consequences that reverberate across the political landscape, especially as we gear up for the 2020 elections. This expert panelists will draw on original data and analysis to shed light on the issue and comment on what the Court's decision means for higher education and the future of multiracial democracy more generally.

Join us for an online panel discussion about race and public opinion featuring a distinguished panel of speakers, including Desmond Ang, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government; Hannah Walker, Assistant Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin; Omar Wasow, Assistant Professor of Politics, Princeton; and Angela X. Ocampo, Assistant Professor of Political Science, LSA Collegiate Fellow, University of Michigan. Moderators: Amy Lerman, Professor of Public Policy and Political Science, UC Berkeley, and David Brookman, Associate Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley. This online panel is presented by the Jack Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research, UC Berkeley.  REGISTER HERE

Please note that, as a result of the coronavirus, the previously scheduled ICPSR workshop on scale construction and application in the social sciences will be offered virtually. Visit https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/sumprog/ for more information.

Please note that, as a result of the coronavirus, the previously scheduled ICPSR workshop on difference in differences (DiD) designs will be offered virtually. Please visit https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/sumprog/ for more information.