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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Interview

Published December 18, 2019

Q&A with David Harding: “On the Outside: Prisoner Reentry and Reintegration”

An interview with David Harding, Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley and co-author of the book On the Outside: Prisoner Reentry and Reintegration, which examines the lives of 22 people as they pass out of the prison gates and back into the world.

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Authors Meet Critics

Recap

Published December 12, 2019

In the Ruins of Neoliberalism

Watch the video from our "Authors Meet Critics" panel on Professor Wendy Brown's In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Anti-Democratic Politics in the West.

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Matrix On Point

Recap

Published November 27, 2019

On IPCC, Climate Crisis

A "Matrix On Point" panel examined the climate crisis from diverse disciplinary perspectives.

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Matrix On Point

Recap

Published November 10, 2019

The Trump Impeachment

Recorded on November 5, 2019, Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Professor Robert B. Reich discuss "The Trump Impeachment."

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Podcast

Interview

Published October 30, 2019

Matrix Podcast: Interview with Dacher Keltner

In this episode of the Matrix Podcast, Michael Watts talks with Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology, Director of the Berkeley Social Interaction Laboratory, and Faculty Director of the Greater Good Science Center.

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Matrix On Point

Recap

Published October 29, 2019

Matrix on Point: Brexit

The end of October 2019 marks the deadline for Brexit ("British Exit"), when the United Kingdom is scheduled to leave the European Union. Following a revolt from within his own party, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has failed in his efforts to move ahead without a "backstop" and called a General Election for December 12. What's next for Brexit? And how might Brexit transform political and economic life in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the world? On October 24, three distinguished scholars—Mark Bevir, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for British Studies, Akasemi Newsome, Associate Director of the Institute of European Studies, and Ian Duncan, Florence Green Bixby Chair in the English Department—took on this important topic as part of "Matrix On Point," a new brown-bag series that promotes focused, cross-disciplinary conversations on today’s most pressing contemporary issues.

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