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.

Authors Meet Critics

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Event Date: April 7th, 2026
12:00 PM to 1:30 PM PT

Trevor Jackson: “The Insatiable Machine: How Capitalism Conquered the World”

Join us for a panel on "The Insatiable Machine," by Professor Trevor Jackson, which traces capitalism’s development from the accidental construction of an international monetary system to the creation of banking, the emergence of a new form of slavery, fossil–fuel industrialization, and finally the global capitalist system spread by imperialism.

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Affiliated Centers

Recap

Published November 30, 2020

2020 Election Post-Mortem: Why It Happened and the Implications for American Democracy.

Recorded on November 12, 2020, this video features a "post-mortem" analysis of the 2020 election — and what the implications are for the future.

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Authors Meet Critics

Recap

Published November 13, 2020

The Future of Nuclear Waste

Recorded on Nov. 5, 2020, this online "Authors Meet Critics" panel featured Rosemary Joyce, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, discussing her book, The Future of Nuclear Waste: What Art and Archaeology Can Tell Us about Securing the World's Most Hazardous Material. 

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Affiliated Centers

Recap

Published October 25, 2020

2020 Citrin Center Award: Robert Putnam

Recorded on October 20, 2020, this video features a lecture by Robert D. Putnam, Malkin Research Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University. Putnam was awarded the 2020 Citrin Award, which recognizes the career of an individual who has made significant contributions to the study and understanding of public opinion.

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Authors Meet Critics

Recap

Published October 16, 2020

Let Them Eat Tweets

Recorded on October 13, 2020, this panel focused on the book, Let them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality, co-authored by Paul Pierson, the John Gross Endowed Chair and Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley.

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Authors Meet Critics

Recap

Published October 16, 2020

Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of Race in a Post-Chocolate City

On October 7, 2020, Dr. Brandi Thompson Summers, Assistant Professor of Geography and Global Metropolitan Studies at UC Berkeley, discussed her book Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of Race in a Post-Chocolate City.

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Matrix On Point

Recap

Published October 13, 2020

Matrix on Point: The Struggle for Hong Kong

On October 1, 2021, Social Science Matrix hosted a "Matrix on Point," co-sponsored by the Center for Chinese Studies, that considered both the history and future of Hong Kong’s democracy movement. Panelists included Ching Kwan Lee, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles; Alex Chow, a doctoral student in the UC Berkeley Department of Geography; and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chancellor's Professor of History at UC Irvine. Thomas Gold, Professor in the Graduate School at UC Berkeley, moderated the panel.

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