New Directions
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Event Date: March 10th, 2026
12:00 PM to 1:30 PM PT
New Directions: Colonial Legacies, Post-Colonial Perspectives
Colonial legacies continue to shape political, social, and intellectual life. While colonialism is often treated as a historical period, its structures and logics persist in contemporary debates around race, territory, knowledge, and power. This panel — part of the Social Science Matrix New Directions series — will bring together UC Berkeley graduate students from anthropology, geography, and sociology to examine how colonial histories are reproduced, contested, and reimagined across different contexts.
Learn More >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.
Learn More >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.
Learn More >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.
Learn More >Podcast
Interview
Published September 30, 2020
Matrix Podcast: Interview with Leigh Raiford
In this episode, Michael Watts interviews Leigh Raiford, Associate Professor of African American Studies at UC Berkeley and author of "Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare: Photography and the African American Freedom Struggle," finalist for the 2011 Berkshire Conference of Women Historians First Book Prize.
Learn More >Matrix Lecture
Recap
Published September 29, 2020
The Code of Capital
A Matrix Distinguished Lecture by Katharina Pistor provided an overview of her book, The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality.
Learn More >Matrix On Point
Recap
Published September 28, 2020
Homelessness and the Bay Area Housing Crisis
On September 21, 2020, a panel of researchers, advocates, and medical practitioners joined a "Matrix on Point" discussion focused on homelessness and the San Francisco Bay Area’s housing crisis.
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