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.

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.

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Postcolonialism

Recap

Published March 10, 2020

Eros Ideologies: Writings on Art, Spirituality, and the Decolonial

Recorded on February 27, 2020, this “Authors Meet Critics” discussion focused on Professor Laura Eliza Pérez's book Eros Ideologies: Writings on Art, Spirituality, and the Decolonial (Duke University Press). Pérez, Professor of Ethnic Studies and and Chair of the Latinx Research Center, was joined by Natalia Brizuela and Julia Bryan-Wilson.

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Other Events

Recap

Published March 3, 2020

The California Primary and Super Tuesday

Recorded on February 28, 2020, a few days before the "Super Tuesday" primary, this panel focused on California's role in the 2020 presidential election.

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Authors Meet Critics

Recap

Published February 12, 2020

They Were Her Property

Recorded on January 29, 2020, this "Authors Meets Critics" panel featured a discussion of They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South, by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, Associate Professor of History at UC Berkeley.

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Information

Article

Published January 28, 2020

The Berkeley Protocol on Open Source Investigations

UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center is leading the way in the ethical use of open-source methods for investigating war crimes and human rights violations. We interviewed Dr. Alexa Koenig, executive director of the Human Rights Center at Berkeley Law and a pioneer in shaping the Berkeley Protocol.

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Matrix Lecture

Recap

Published January 28, 2020

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Race for Profit

In a Matrix Distinguished Lecture, Princeton professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor explained how banks and the real estate industry have undermined black homeownership.

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Other Events

Recap

Published December 18, 2019

Who’s on First? The Democratic Race at the End of the Invisible Primary

Recorded on December 12, 2019, this video features a panel on the state of the presidential race heading into the 2020 primary season.

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