Matrix On Point
Recap
Published April 10, 2025
Mainstreaming Psychedelics
Psychedelics are steadily moving from the fringes of counterculture to the heart of mainstream society, driven by a growing body of research and shifting public perception. As psychedelics shed their stigma, they are catalyzing a broader conversation about mental health, spirituality, and the boundaries of human consciousness. Recorded on March 6, 2025, this panel featured Diana Negrin, David Presti, Charles Hirschkind, and Graham Pechenik, with Poulomi Saha moderating.
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Interview
Published September 20, 2023
Untimely Sacrifices: An Interview with Daena Funahashi
In this interview, Nataliya Nedzhvetskaya, a Matrix Communications Scholar, spoke with Daena Funahashi, Assistant Professor in the UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology, about her new book, “Untimely Sacrifices: Work and Death in Finland,” based on her ethnographic work in Finnish rehabilitation programs for occupational burnout.
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Interview
Published September 8, 2023
Gender and Political Gatekeepers: A Visual Interview with Melanie Phillips
How do we understand the barriers that women face in becoming political candidates? Read our interview with Melanie L. Phillips, who completed her PhD in the Charles and Louise Travers Political Science Department at Berkeley in 2023 and is currently a Lecturer in the Political Science Department and a Research and Evaluation Associate at School-to-School International.
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Research Teams
Published August 30, 2023
Matrix Announces 2023-2024 Research Teams
Social Science Matrix is welcoming five new Matrix Research Teams for the 2023-2024 academic year. Matrix Research Teams are groups of scholars who gather regularly to explore or develop a novel question or emerging field in the social sciences. This year’s funded teams — one faculty-led team and four graduate student-led teams — will address a diverse range of social science questions.
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Interview
Published August 21, 2023
Language Revitalization in Oakland: A Visual Interview with Tessa Scott
Mam, a Mayan language spoken both in the highlands of Guatemala as well as in diaspora communities in Mexico and the US, is rapidly becoming one of the most widely spoken Indigenous languages in the San Francisco East Bay region. Mam-speaking migrants are part of a broader trend of Central American migrants in the United […]
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Interview
Published August 14, 2023
How Medical Expertise Shapes Gender-Affirming Health Care: An Interview with Tara Gonsalves
Read an interview with Tara Gonsalves, a recent PhD graduate of UC Berkeley and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University, about the challenges of the categories of sex, gender, and transgender, and how these categories are used in gender-affirming health care in the United States today.
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Interview
Published August 7, 2023
Listening to Rwandan Popular Music with Victoria Netanus Grubbs
This episode of the Matrix Podcast features an interview with Victoria Netanus Grubbs, a Black feminist sound theorist and abolitionist educator who is a Black Studies Collaboratory Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley. Her current book project examines how popular Rwandan music worked in the aftermath of genocide to produce a collective social body.
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