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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Recap
Published April 22, 2022
Catherine Hall: “Racial Capitalism: What’s In A Name?”
Racial capitalism has become a widely used term – but how should we define it and what specific forms does it take? Recorded on April 20, 2022, this talk by esteemed historian Catherine Hall focused on 18th-century Jamaica and the ways in which two separate sets of practices – racisms and capitalism – intersected to form a system embedded in both the metropolitan and the colonial states.
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Recap
Published April 15, 2022
The Future of Money: Mobile Money, Social Media, and Cashless Economies
Focusing on forms of cashless payment, such as mobile money and apps, this "Matrix on Point" panel explored questions about how the social connections made through money are changing, and what the implications might be for our understanding of money, trust, and social connection. The panel featured Kevin Donovan, Lecturer in the Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh; Lana Swartz, Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia; and Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The panel was moderated by Marion Fourcade, Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley and Director of Social Science Matrix.
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Interview
Published April 12, 2022
What Happened to the Week? An Interview with David Henkin
For this episode of the Matrix podcast, Julia Sizek interviewed David M. Henkin, the Margaret Byrne Professor of History, about his book, The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms that Make Us Who We Are. With meticulous archival research that draws on a wide array of sources — including newspapers, restaurant menus, theater schedules, marriage records, school curricula, folklore, housekeeping guides, courtroom testimony, and diaries — Henkin reveals how our current devotion to weekly rhythms emerged in the United States during the first half of the 19th century.
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Recap
Published April 12, 2022
The Social and Economic Impacts of Wildfires
Recorded on April 4, 2022, this panel focused on the contemporary social and economic impacts of wildfires in California during another record-breaking fire season. How have fires changed during the last five years, and with what impacts on the economy? How might policy-makers and economists respond to the changing fire season? The panel was co-sponsored by the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) and presented as part of the Social Science Matrix California Spotlight series.
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Interview
Published March 29, 2022
The Labor Market and the Opioid Epidemic: A Visual Interview with Nathan Seltzer
In this visual interview, Nathan Seltzer, a postdoctoral scholar in the UC Berkeley Department of Demography, discusses his research into the relationship between economic change and population trends. In published and ongoing work, he investigates how the decline of the American manufacturing sector has impacted fertility rates, mortality rates, and economic mobility.
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Interview
Published March 21, 2022
A Visual Interview with Eric Stanley on “Atmospheres of Violence”
How should we understand violence against trans/queer people in relation to the promise of modern democracies? In their new book, "Atmospheres of Violence: Structuring Antagonisms and the Trans/Queer Ungovernable," Eric A. Stanley, Associate Professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, argues that anti-trans/queer violence is foundational to, and not an aberration of, western modernity. For this visual interview, Julia Sizek, Matrix Content Curator and a PhD candidate in the UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology, asked Professor Stanley about their research, drawing upon images and videos referenced in the book.
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