Please join us on Monday, May 13th at 12pm as Nathan Gardels and Nicolas Berggruen, co-founders of the Berggruen Institute, will discuss their new book, Renovating Democracy: Governing in the Age of Globalization and Digital Capitalism (University of California Press; April, 2019), with Laura Tyson, Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School at the Haas School of Business & Faculty Director of the Institute for Business & Social Impact. In their book, Gardels and Berggruen argue that the rise of populism in the West, of China in the East, and the spread of social media, has prompted a deep rethink of how democracy works—or doesn’t. RSVP here to attend.

Join leading scholars and practitioners for a series of discussions about gender and American politics as we approach the 2020 election. Topics will include: evolving candidate recruitment patterns, the gender gap in voting and governing, campaigning in the age of #MeToo, the emergence of a historic field of female presidential candidates vying to take on President Trump, and many more.

Members of the UC Berkeley social science community—including faculty, staff, and students—are cordially invited to a combined Social Sciences Fest/Matrix Open House! Please join us to enjoy food and drink and learn more about what has been happening in the social sciences at UC Berkeley.

Speakers include Morris Levy, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Southern California; Cecilia Mo, Assistant Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley; and Cara Wong, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Illinois. Moderated by Laura Stoker, Associate Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley. Sponsored by the Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research, Public Law & Policy @ Berkeley, Institute of International Studies (IIS), and Institute for the Study of Societal Issues.

Please join us: Monday, March 4th at 4:00 pm in 820 Barrows Hall for the Spring 2019 Social Science Matrix Distinguished Lecture, "The Rise of Illiberal Governance: Comparing Viktor Orban and Donald Trump," presented by

This semester, Social Science Matrix will be supporting the UC Berkeley Grad Division in presenting Grad Slam, a UC-sponsored competition designed to showcase graduate student research for a general audience in three-minute talks.

Sponsored by the Matrix Research Team on Queer Ecologies/Feminist Biologies, this presentation will feature Dr. Cleo Woelfe-Erskine discussing some of his most recent research, in a presentation entitled "With and For the Multitude: Cruising a Waterfront with José Esteban Muñoz."

A presentation by Sherene H. Razackis Distinguished Professor and the Penny Kanner Endowed Chair in Gender Studies, UCLA. "In this paper, I pursue what race has to do with disposability through an examination of the death in custody of a Roma refugee. I end with comments about the connections that can be drawn between the processes of disposability for refugees, African Americans and Canadians and Indigenous peoples who die at the hands of the police. These connec­tions reveal disposability to be a racial and glob­al process orchestrated by states and sustained by professionals (medical, legal, police)."

The panel will review the outcomes of the 2018 midterm elections and provide an account of the factors producing this result.