California Spotlight
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Event Date: February 9th, 2026
12:00 PM to 1:30 PM PT
California Spotlight: Higher Education Under Attack
This California Spotlight panel brings together leading scholars to examine the forces challenging public higher education today. Drawing on areas spanning finance, policy, and labor, the discussion will explore how these dynamics are shaping the UC system, and what is at stake for students, employees, the public, and the future of higher education.
Learn More >Solidarity and Strife
Recap
Published April 13, 2021
Beyond Competition: Alternative Discovery Procedures & The Postcapitalist Public Sphere
On March 19, 2021, Matrix presented a lecture by Evgeny Morozov, author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. Presented as part of the SSRC-sponsored research initiative, "Solidarity and Strife: Democracies in a Time of Pandemic.”
Learn More >Podcast
Interview
Published April 12, 2021
Matrix Podcast: Interview with Rebecca Herman
In this podcast, Michael Watts interviews Rebecca Herman, Assistant Professor of History, UC Berkeley. Professor Herman's research and writing examine modern Latin American history in a global context. Her first book, forthcoming from Oxford University Press, reconstructs the history of U.S. military basing in Latin America during World War II.
Learn More >Podcast
Interview
Published March 30, 2021
Matrix Podcast: Interview with Brittany Birberick
In this episode, Professor Michael Watts interviews Brittany Birberick, an anthropology PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley — and a former Matrix Dissertation Fellow. Birberick's dissertation project focuses on urban transformation in Johannesburg, South Africa. More broadly, she writes and thinks about economies, migration, temporality, and aesthetics within an urban context.
Learn More >Authors Meet Critics
Recap
Published March 15, 2021
Scammer’s Yard: The Crime of Black Repair in Jamaica
Recorded on March 10, 2021, this video features a panel discussion about Scammer's Yard: The Crime of Black Repair in Jamaica, a book by Jovan Scott Lewis, Assistant Professor of Geography at UC Berkeley.
Learn More >Matrix On Point
Recap
Published March 15, 2021
Pandemic Lessons: Assessing Educational Inequalities in the Wake of COVID-19
Presented by the University of California, Berkeley's Social Science Matrix on March 9, 2021, this video features an online panel discussion addressing what we have learned about educational inequalities after a year of pandemic-related school closures.
Learn More >Solidarity and Strife
Recap
Published February 28, 2021
The True Costs of Misinformation: Producing Moral and Technical Order in a Time of Pandemonium
Recorded on February 19, 2021, this video features a lecture by Joan Donovan, Research Director for the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.
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