Article Type: Recap

Matrix Lecture

Craig Calhoun, “Cosmopolitanism and Belonging”

Published February 6, 2018

On January 31, 2018, Craig Calhoun, President of the Berggruen Institute and Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics, presented the UC Berkeley Social Science Matrix Distinguished Lecture, "Cosmopolitanism and Belonging."

Between January 31-February 2, 2018, Social Science Matrix was honored to host Craig Calhoun, President of the Berggruen Institute and Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics, for a visit that included a public lecture and a seminar, as well as conversations with scholars from across the UC Berkeley campus.

As a highlight of the visit, Calhoun presented the Matrix Distinguished Lecture, “Cosmopolitanism and Belonging,” which examined how the concept of “cosmopolitanism” has evolved over the past two decades, in the U.S. and Europe and in China. “When things were going right, cosmopolitanism was seen as a central dimension to progress,” Calhoun explained in the abstract for his lecture. “When things looked bad, cosmopolitanism was thought central to the remedy.”

Calhoun noted that the allure of cosmopolitanism began to wane following the 9/11 attacks and the financial crisis of 2008-9, events that “seemed to discredit the promise that globalization could be good for everyone.” At the same time, a “new discourse” of cosmopolitanism began to take hold in China. “The rise of China as a global power is accompanied by various efforts to brand its ‘peaceful rise’ as an embrace of global responsibility, even global mission. The idea of tianxia, the unity of all under heaven, is especially prominent.” A video of Calhoun’s lecture, which was introduced by Bill Hanks, Director of Social Science Matrix, can be viewed above or on YouTube.

Calhoun has been President of the Berggruen Institute since 2016, and he previously served as Director and President of the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he remains Centennial Professor. Earlier, Calhoun was for thirteen years President of the New York-based Social Science Research Council (SSRC). He is the author of several books including: The Roots of Radicalism (2012) on the 19th century origins of modern political movements and Neither Gods nor Emperors (1994), which examined the student movement behind the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest in Beijing. In 2007 he published Nations Matter, which predicted rising nationalist and populist challenges to cosmopolitanism grounded in a highly unequal global economy. With Immanuel Wallerstein, Randall Collins, Georgi Derluguian and Michael Mann, he wrote Does Capitalism Have a Future? (2013), now translated into seventeen languages. He is also the editor of several books, the author of approximately 100 articles, and the former editor of two scholarly journals, Social Theory and Comparative Social Research. (View his full bio here.)

Matrix offers our sincere thanks to Craig Calhoun for a memorable visit and compelling lecture.

 

Workshop/Symposium

Geo4Dev Symposium

Published October 19, 2017

Videos from the 2017 Geospatial Analysis for International Development (Geo4Dev) conference.

Matrix was honored to co-sponsor Geospatial Analysis for International Development (Geo4Dev), a two-day symposium and workshop held September 6-7, 2017 focused on the application of remote sensing and geospatial analysis to address issues of poverty, sustainable development, urbanization, climate change, and economic growth in developing countries.

The symposium featured scientific presentations and posters form leading researchers who are using analytics from a multitude of disciplines. Satellite imagery has immense potential to gain understanding into changes within human populations and their environments. In this symposium, researchers discuss how satellite data can be used to estimate poverty, monitor power outages, assess the impact of war on water resources, estimate costs of road investments, and more.

The Geo4Dev Symposium solicited papers to be presented at the event through an open call. Selected papers were also eligible for an opportunity to submit to Development Engineering: The Journal of Engineering in Economic Development.

The event’s lead sponsors were the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), Geospatial Innovation Facility (GIF), and the Big Pixel Initiative at UC San Diego.

Below are videos from select presentations:

Welcome and Keynote: The Global Sensing Inversion

Ran Goldblatt, Postdoctoral Fellow, UC San Diego, Big Pixel Initiative; Joe Mascaro, Director of Academic Programs, Planet.

Whose Power Gets Cut? Using High-Frequency Satellite Images To Monitor Electricity Access and Power Outages

Brian Min, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan

Satellite-based Monitoring of Inaccessible Reservoirs and Application to War-torn Syria

Mark Muller, Assistant Professor, University of Notre Dame

The Next Frontier for Remote Sensing in the Analysis of Economic Development

Gordon Hanson, Acting Dean, UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy

Satellite Imagery and Small Area Poverty Estimation

Tom Swartz, Data Scientist, Orbital Insight

Lightning Talks

Various Speakers

Supervised Image Classification of LC/LU by Means of Remote Sensing: Mapping Built-Up Land Cover in Vietnam

Ran Goldblatt, Postdoctoral Fellow, UC San Diego, Big Pixel Initiative

Detecting and Characterizing Informal Settlements Using Satellite Imagery

Nikhil Kaza, Associate Professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Measuring Economic Well-being from Space

Marshall Burke, Assistant Professor, Stanford University

Building the City: Urban Transition and Institutional Frictions

Tanner Regan, PhD Candidate, London School of Economics

Benefits and Costs of Road Investments in Africa: Using Geospatial Data to Plan for Investments

Claudia Berg, Economist, International Monetary Fund

The Spatial Structure of Endowments, Trade, and Inequality: Evidence from the Global Climate

Kyle Meng, Assistant Professor, UC Santa Barbara

Local Incentives and National Tax Evasion: Unintended Effects of a Mining Reform in Colombia

Santiago Saavedra, Stanford University/Universidad del Rosario

To learn more about this event, please see www.geo4dev.com.

Workshop/Symposium

2017 Peder Sather Symposium

Published October 10, 2017

Matrix was honored to host the 2017 Peder Sather Symposium, which focused on the theme, "Freedom of Speech Under Pressure in the World’s Liberal Democracies." Featured speakers include Azita Raji, Former US Ambassador to Sweden, and Dr. Knut Olav Åmås, Executive Director, Fritt Ord Foundation.

On September 29, 2017, Social Science Matrix was honored to host the Peder Sather Symposium, which focused on the theme, “Freedom of Speech Under Pressure in the World’s Liberal Democracies.”

Speakers included Azita Raji, Former US Ambassador to Sweden, and Dr. Knut Olav Åmås, Executive Director, Fritt Ord Foundation. The event was introduced by Carla Hesse, Executive Dean of the UC Berkeley College of Letters & Science, and Carol Christ, Chancellor of UC Berkeley.

The Peder Sather Symposium fosters interdisciplinary discussion among scholars and policy makers on global and national issues of mutual concern and promotes the understanding of political, economic and cultural issues. The symposium is co-sponsored by the College of Letters & Science, the Royal Norwegian Consulate General, and the Honorary Consulate General of Sweden.

Matrix Lecture

An Orderly Mess: Helga Nowotny

Published May 22, 2017

On May 2, 2017, UC Berkeley's Social Science Matrix was honored to welcome Helga Nowotny, Professor emerita of Science and Technology Studies, ETH Zurich, and a founding member of the European Research Council. Click through to view the video of this lecture, which includes an introducion by William Hanks, Director of Social Science Matrix.

“An Orderly Mess”: Social Science Matrix Distinguished Lecture by Helga Nowotny from Social Science Matrix on Vimeo.

On May 2, 2017, UC Berkeley’s Social Science Matrix was honored to welcome Helga Nowotny, Professor emerita of Science and Technology Studies, ETH Zurich, and a founding member of the European Research Council.

In her presentation, Nowotny discussed the concept of “messiness,” which she wrote in an abstract “is a familiar condition – it forms the background of our daily life and of society. While we normally take it for granted it is also an expression of resilience against disorder that threatens to take over once we face forces beyond our control.”

Nowotny’s lecture focuses on “the temporal and spatial dimensions in which messiness becomes apparent today: broken time lines and fragmented spaces. Messiness is framed by a blurring of the world orderings inherited from modernity. Against the backdrop of rapid computerization and the rise of algorithms we may find ourselves again in a phase of transition towards new ways of world ordering. What would it entail, especially for the social sciences?”

Professor Nowotny holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University, NY. and a doctorate in jurisprudence from the University of Vienna. She has held teaching and research positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, Vienna; King’s College, Cambridge; University of Bielefeld; Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin; Ecole des Hautes Etudes an Sciences Sociales, Paris; Science Center for Social Sciences, Berlin; Collegium Budapest; Budapest. Before joining ETH Zurich, Professor Nowotny was Professor for Science and Technology Studies at the University of Vienna. In 2007 ,she was elected ERC Vice President and from March 2010 until December 2013 President of the ERC. Currently she is Chair of the ERA Council Forum Austria, member of the Austrian Council and Vice-President of the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings.

Professor Nowotny has published more than 300 articles in scientific journals. Her new book The Cunning of Uncertainty, has been published by Polity Press in October 2015. Her latest book publications include Naked Genes, Reinventing the human in the molecular age, (with Giuseppe Testa), MIT Press, 2011, Insatiable Curiosity, Innovation in a Fragile Future, MIT Press, 2008, and Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation (ed.), New York and London, 2006.

Other Events

2017 Matrix Open House

Published May 22, 2017

On May 4, 2017, Social Science Matrix held an Open House to celebrate the end of the academic year. Check out our gallery of images and video of introductory remarks by William Hanks, Director of Social Science Matrix.

On May 4, 2017, Social Science Matrix held our Spring Open House to welcome friends and celebrate the end of another successful academic year. Students, staff, and faculty from across campus—as well as the external community—joined us in our home in Barrows Hall to gather, share food and drink, and learn about the past year’s activities at Matrix.

 

Social Science Matrix 2017 Open House: Opening Remarks by William Hanks from Social Science Matrix on Vimeo.

In his introductory remarks (see video above), Professor William Hanks, Director of Social Science Matrix, introduced some of the key developments from this year, including the formation of a bilateral exchange with Sciences Po, in Paris; a fellowship by Professor Ishtan Rev of Central European University; and the Matrix Distinguished Lecture, delivered by Helga Nowotny, Former President of the European Research Council.

Hanks also thanked inaugural cohort of Matrix Dissertation Fellows, and he noted that Matrix added five new Affiliated Centers to our roster this year, bringing the total to 23. Hanks said that the Affiliated Centers—which span disciplines and topical areas—help to create “enduring relations” on campus.

“We do a lot of activities that are wide open to the campus and community,” said Hanks. “During the current year, we hosted dozens of events, including conferences, individual talks, and a book series…. We think of ourselves as an incubator for cross-disciplinary research. We want risky research that combines approaches and methods that are not always settled or already familiar.”

Participants from many of this year’s Matrix Research Teams were on hand, and posters about these different groups’ work were on display. PDFs of the posters can be found on our multi-media page.

Click here for gallery of images from the Spring 2017 Matrix Open House.

 

Other Events

Clair Brown, “Buddhist Economics”

Published March 9, 2017

Watch the video of Clair Brown, Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Work, Technology, and Society at UC Berkeley, discussing her book, Buddhist Economics: An Enlightened Approach to the Dismal Science. The conversation was introduced by Christina Maslach, Professor of the Graduate School of Psychology, UC Berkeley.

In this video, recorded on March 2, 2017, Clair Brown, Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Work, Technology, and Society at UC Berkeley, discussed her new book, Buddhist Economics: An Enlightened Approach to the Dismal Science. The conversation was introduced by Christina Maslach, Professor of the Graduate School of Psychology, UC Berkeley.

Traditional economics measures the ways in which we spend our income, and doesn’t attribute worth to the crucial human interactions that give our lives meaning. Brown, an economist at UC Berkeley and a practicing Buddhist, has developed a holistic model, one based on the notion that quality of life should be measured by more than national income. Brown advocates an approach to organizing the economy that embraces, rather than skirts, questions of values, sustainability, and inequality.

Complementing the award-winning work of Paul Krugman and Jeffrey Sachs, and the paradigm-breaking spirit of Thomas Piketty and Amartya Sen, Brown incorporates the Buddhist emphasis on interconnectedness, capability, and happiness into her vision for a sustainable and compassionate world.

This event was co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Department of Economics and the Institute for Research in Labor and Employment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Authors Meet Critics

Arlie Hochschild, “Strangers in Their Own Land”

Published December 7, 2016

On November 30, 2016, UC Berkeley's Social Science Matrix welcomed Arlie Russell Hochschild, Professor Emerita of Sociology, for a discussion of her new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right (The New Press, September 2016), a National Book Award Finalist.

A Conversation with Arlie Hochschild from Social Science Matrix on Vimeo.

On November 30, 2016, UC Berkeley’s Social Science Matrix welcomed Arlie Russell Hochschild, Professor Emerita of Sociology, for a discussion focused on her new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right (The New Press, September 2016), a National Book Award Finalist.

Hochschild is one of the most influential sociologists of her generation. She is the author of nine books, including The Second Shift, The Time Bind, The Managed Heart, and The Outsourced Self. Three of her books have been named as New York Times Notable Books of the Year and her work appears in sixteen languages. She was the winner of the Ulysses Medal as well as Guggenheim and Mellon grants.

In Strangers in Their Own Land, Hochschild embarks on a thought-provoking journey from her liberal hometown of Berkeley, California, deep into Louisiana bayou country—a stronghold of the conservative right. As she gets to know people who strongly oppose many of the ideas she champions, Hochschild nevertheless finds common ground with the people she meets—among them a Tea Party activist whose town has been swallowed by a sinkhole caused by a drilling accident—people whose concerns are shared by all Americans: the desire for community, the embrace of family, and hopes for their children.

Strangers in Their Own Land goes beyond the commonplace liberal idea that many on the political right have been duped into voting against their interests. In the right-wing world she explores, Hochschild discovers powerful forces—fear of cultural eclipse, economic decline, perceived government betrayal—that override self-interest, as progressives see it, and help explain the emotional appeal of a candidate like Donald Trump. Hochschild draws on her expert knowledge of the sociology of emotion to help us understand what it feels like to live in “red” America. Along the way she finds answers to one of the crucial questions of contemporary American politics: why do the people who would seem to benefit most from “liberal” government intervention abhor the very idea?

“Conducted over the last five years and focusing on emotions, I try to scale an ‘empathy wall’ to learn how to see, think, and feel as they do,” Hochschild explains on her website. “What, I ask, do members of the Tea Party–or anyone else–want to feel about the nation and its leaders? I trace this desire to what I call their “deep story”—a feels-as-if story of their difficult struggle for the American Dream. Hidden beneath the right-wing hostility to almost all government intervention, I argue, lies an anguishing loss of honor, alienation, and engagement in a hidden social class war.”

In this conversation, moderated by Lynsay Skiba, Associate Director for Programs at Social Science Matrix, Hochschild details her experiences conducting research for Strangers in Their Own Land, and she describes the relationships that helped her understand the underlying narratives that shape these Americans’ opinions and attitudes.

 

Other Events

Viet Thanh Nguyen: “Beyond Victims and Voices: On Writing as a Radical Act”

Published November 1, 2016

Video is now available of the October 28 presentation by Viet Thanh Nguyen, an alumnus of the UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies program whose novel, The Sympathizer, is a New York Times bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

“Beyond Victims and Voices: On Writing as a Radical Act”: Viet Thanh Nguyen from Social Science Matrix on Vimeo.

On October 28, Social Science Matrix hosted this presentation by Viet Thanh Nguyen, an alumnus of the UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies program whose novel, The Sympathizer, is a New York Times bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In this talk, entitled “Beyond Victims and Voices: On Writing as a Radical Act,” Nguyen discusses what he intends to achieve with his writing, and explains how, in the course of his writing process, he had to learn how to write “fiction like criticism and criticism like fiction…because this, for me as a writer and a scholar, is where the radical act of writing can emerge.”

In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Nguyen has won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction from the American Library Association, the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction, a Gold Medal in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, and the Asian/Pacific American Literature Award from the Asian/Pacific American Librarian Association. His other books are Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War and Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. He is the Aerol Arnold Chair of English, and an associate professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, at the University of Southern California. His next book is a short story collection, The Refugees, forthcoming in February 2017 from Grove Press.

Other Events

Weapons of Math Destruction

Published October 17, 2016

A presentation by Cathy O’Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy.

On September 16, 2016, Social Science Matrix hosted Cathy O’Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy.

In her book (and presentation), Ms. O’Neil—a Harvard-trained mathematician and former hedge fund data analyst—discusses how many of the decisions that affect our lives—where we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much we pay for health insurance—are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated.

But as Cathy O’Neil reveals, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and uncontestable, even when they’re wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination: if a poor student can’t get a loan because a lending model deems him too risky (by virtue of his zip code), he’s then cut off from the kind of education that could pull him out of poverty, and a vicious spiral ensues. Models are propping up the lucky and punishing the downtrodden, creating a “toxic cocktail for democracy.” Welcome to the dark side of Big Data.

O’Neil calls on modelers to take more responsibility for their algorithms and on policy makers to regulate their use. But in the end, it’s up to us to become more savvy about the models that govern our lives. O’Neil empowers us to ask the tough questions, uncover the truth, and demand change.

The video of this presentation can be viewed above—or directly on Vimeo.

 

Biography

Cathy O’Neil earned a Ph.D. in math from Harvard, was a postdoc at the MIT math department, and a professor at Barnard College, where she published a number of research papers in arithmetic algebraic geometry. She then switched over to the private sector, working as a quant for the hedge fund D.E. Shaw in the middle of the credit crisis, and then for RiskMetrics, a risk software company that assesses risk for the holdings of hedge funds and banks. She left finance in 2011 and started working as a data scientist in the New York start-up scene, building models that predicted people’s purchases and clicks. She wrote Doing Data Science in 2013 and launched the Lede Program in Data Journalism at Columbia in 2014. She is a weekly guest on the Slate Money podcast.