Technology

Panel

Recap

Published April 14, 2024

Storytelling and the Climate Crisis

Contemporary writers and activists have described the climate crisis as, in part, a crisis of the imagination, of culture, and of storytelling. Recorded on March 11, 2024, this panel featured a group of authors and scholars of different genres — science fiction, journalism, history, literary fiction, and comedy — discussing how the climate crisis has impacted their craft and what practices of storytelling have to offer us at this pivotal moment in human history. This panel was co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Department of English, the Department of History, and the Berkeley School of Journalism.

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New Directions

Recap

Published April 14, 2024

New Directions in Greening Infrastructure

Recorded on March 20, 2024, this panel features three early-career scholars from UC Berkeley presenting their research on the greening infrastructure and the green energy transition. The panel included Johnathan Guy, PhD Candidate in Political Science; Caylee Hong, a PhD candidate in Anthropology, and Andrew Jaeger, PhD Candidate in Sociology. The panel was moderated by Daniel Aldana Cohen, Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley. Co-Sponsored by the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, the Berkeley Climate Change Network, and the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative.

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Matrix On Point

Recap

Published March 1, 2024

Surveillance and Privacy in a Biometric World

Watch the video (or read the transcript) of our Matrix on Point panel on how biometric identification might change our understanding of the relationship between people, private industry, and their government. Featuring John Chuang, School of Information; Lawrence Cohen, Anthropology and South and Southeast Asian Studies, and Jennifer Urban, Berkeley Law. Moderated by Berkeley Law's Rebecca Wexler.

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Podcast

Interview

Published January 13, 2024

Authoritarian Absorption: An Interview with Yan Long

This episode of the Matrix Podcast features an interview with Yan Long, Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley, whose research focuses on the politics of public health in China. Matrix Communications Scholar Jennie Barker spoke with Long about her forthcoming book, "Authoritarian Absorption: The Transnational Remaking of Infectious Disease Politics in China."

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California Spotlight

Recap

Published November 13, 2023

California Spotlight: From Boom to Doom in San Francisco

Watch the video (or listen to the podcast) of our California Spotlight panel focused on the current state of commercial real estate in San Francisco — and what lies ahead. Panelists included Nicholas Bloom, from Stanford University; Ted Egan, Chief Economist of the City and County of San Francisco; and Nancy Wallace, from Berkeley Haas. Amir Kermani, from Haas School of Business and the National Bureau of Economic Research, moderated.

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Authors Meet Critics

Recap

Published November 10, 2023

Massimo Mazzotti, “Reactionary Mathematics: A Genealogy of Purity”

Watch the video (or listen to a podcast) of our "Authors Meet Critics" panel on the book "Reactionary Mathematics: A Genealogy of Purity," by Massimo Mazzotti, Professor in the UC Berkeley Department of History and the Thomas M. Siebel Presidential Chair in the History of Science, with by Matthew L. Jones, the Smith Family Professor of History at Princeton University, and David Bates, Professor of Rhetoric at UC Berkeley. Thomas Laqueur, the Helen Fawcett Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UC Berkeley, moderated.

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Matrix On Point

Recap

Published October 21, 2023

Matrix on Point: The Future of College

 The pandemic has rocked higher education. 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. Enrollment patterns are also shifting in a changing economy: while selective flagship public institutions and not-for-profit private institutions are receiving more applications, […]

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Symposium

Recap

Published August 1, 2023

DEEPFAKE: A Rhetorical and Economic Alternative to Address the So-Called “Post-Truth Era”

Recorded on May 10, 2023 at Social Science Matrix, this symposium aimed to develop a critique of the current debates about Post-Truth and fakeness, and specifically of Big Tech’s effort to frame the political expression of the demos as it solidifies its control over the digital economy.

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Article

Interview

Published August 1, 2023

Advancing Computational Psychology: A Visual Interview with Bill Thompson

Read an interview with UC Berkeley cognitive scientist Bill Thompson, who uses computational methods and large-scale experiments to understand problems like knowledge transmission, the universality of language categories, and the social aspects of human problem-solving.

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Social Science / Data Science

Recap

Published April 15, 2023

Jo Guldi: Towards a Practice of Text Mining to Understand Change Over Historical Time

Recorded on March 8, 2023, this video features a lecture by Jo Guldi, Professor of History and Practicing Data Scientist at Southern Methodist University. Co-sponsored by Social Science Matrix, the UC Berkeley Department of History, and D-Lab, the talk was presented as part of the Social Science / Data Science event series.

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Panel

Recap

Published April 15, 2023

Economics and Geopolitics in US International Relations: China, Europe, and the Global South

 The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have reshaped global geopolitics, trade, and security. How will these changes affect the relationship between the US and China, Europe, and the Global South? How will they impact US firms operating globally, and how might foreign leaders — and notably the Chinese leadership — respond? Recorded on […]

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Matrix On Point

Recap

Published April 15, 2023

Matrix on Point: Myths and Misinformation

In this panel, recorded on March 15, 2023, a group of scholars who study false histories and conspiracy theories discussed how misinformation circulates, and the effects of such myths and stories on society.

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