UC Berkeley’s flagship institute for social science research

Our purpose is captured in our name: we provide an organizational framework—a “matrix”—that supports cross-disciplinary research pursued by social scientists across the University of California, Berkeley campus and beyond.

Matrix On Point

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Event Date: October 5th, 2023
4pm-5:30pm

Matrix on Point: The Future of College

From Zoom classrooms to students leaving higher education, colleges have needed to change modalities to adapt to public health risks and the emergence of new technologies. Please join us on October 5, 2023 at 4pm for a panel discussion on the future of higher education, featuring Jonathan Glater, Professor of Law and Associate Dean, J.D. Curriculum and Teaching at Berkeley Law; Michal Kurlaender, Chancellor’s Leadership Professor at the UC Davis School of Education; and Mitchell Stevens, Professor of Education at Stanford University.

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Lecture

Recap

Published June 7, 2023

Consent and Legitimacy: A Revised Bellicose Theory of State-Building with Evidence from around the World, 1500–2000

Recorded on March 9, 2023, this video features Andreas Wimmer, Lieber Professor of Sociology and Political Philosophy at Columbia University, presenting a talk entitled "Consent and Legitimacy: A Revised Bellicose Theory of State-Building with Evidence from around the World, 1500–2000."

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Matrix Lecture

Recap

Published June 6, 2023

Slavery and Genocide: The U.S., Jamaica, and the Historical Sociology of Evil

 On May 1, 2023, Social Science Matrix was honored to present a Matrix Distinguished Lecture by Orlando Patterson, John Cowles Professor of Sociology at Harvard University. Professor Patterson’s lecture was entitled “Slavery and Genocide: The U.S, Jamaica and the Historical Sociology of Evil.” The event was co-sponsored by the Townsend Center for the Humanities, […]

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Podcast

Interview

Published May 17, 2023

Structural Determinants of Police Violence: Interview with Kimberly Cecilia Burke

For this episode of the Matrix Podcast, we spoke with Kimberly Cecilia Burke, a PhD candidate in Sociology at UC Berkeley, whose dissertation uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine how Black-White interracial couples understand and experience police violence in their relationships.

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Culture

Interview

Published May 11, 2023

Do Food Labels Work? A Visual Interview with Nano Barahona

For this “visual interview,” we spoke with Nano Barahona, Assistant Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley, who recently examined how a food labeling policy has changed the approaches of both consumers and food producers in Chile.

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Social Sciences Fest

Recap

Published May 1, 2023

2023 Social Sciences Fest Celebrates Faculty, Staff

On April 25, faculty and staff members from across the Division of Social Sciences gathered for Social Sciences Fest, the annual celebration of the social sciences at UC Berkeley. This year's celebration was held at Alumni House, and all of the division's faculty — along with their families — were invited to attend.

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Lecture

Recap

Published April 30, 2023

micha cárdenas: Poetic Operations and Trans Ecologies

In this talk, recorded on April 26, 2023, Dr. micha cárdenas, Associate Professor of Performance, Play and Design, and Associate Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at UC Santa Cruz, discussed her book Poetic Operations (Duke 2022), as well as her augmented reality artwork about climate justice and her forthcoming book, After Man: Fires, Oceans and Androids.

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