Authors Meet Critics
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Event Date: March 17th, 2025
4:00 PM to 5:30 PM PT
Colonizing Palestine: The Zionist Left and the Making of the Palestinian Nakba
Please join us on March 17 from 4pm-5:30pm for an Authors Meet Critics panel on the book "Colonizing Palestine: The Zionist Left and the Making of the Palestinian Nakba," by Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley. Professor Sabbagh-Khoury will be joined in conversation by Zeus Leonardo, Professor in the School of Education at UC Berkeley; and Keith Feldman, Associate Professor and Chair of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. Ussama Makdisi, Professor of History and Chair for the new Palestinian and Arab Studies Program at UC Berkeley, will moderate.
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Recap
Published December 16, 2023
Dylan Penningroth, “Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights”
Watch a video (or listen to the podcast) of our "Authors Meet Critics" panel on "Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights," by Dylan Penningroth, Professor of Law and Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of History at UC Berkeley, and Associate Dean, Program in Jurisprudence and Social Policy / Legal Studies at Berkeley Law. This book overturns the conventional wisdom about the Civil Rights Movement by demonstrating that Black people had long exercised “the rights of everyday use,” and that this lesser-known private-law tradition paved the way for the modern vision of civil rights.
Learn More >Matrix On Point
Recap
Published December 15, 2023
Matrix on Point: New Directions in Gender and Sexuality
While the last 20 years have marked a significant change in increased acceptance of varied gender expressions and sexual orientations, these changes haven’t made the importance of gender and sexuality as concepts disappear. If anything, they’ve become more relevant for understanding the world today. Recorded on November 30, 2023, this panel brought together a group of UC Berkeley graduate students from the fields of sociology, ethnic studies, and political science for a discussion of gender and sexuality through the lens of such topics as medicine, transnational migration, and marriage.
Learn More >Podcast
Interview
Published December 13, 2023
Racial and Ethnic Difference in South Africa and the USSR: An Interview with Hilary Lynd
In this episode of the Matrix podcast, Hilary Lynd, a PhD Candidate in the UC Berkeley Department of History, discusses the changing relationship between South Africa and the USSR from the 1960s through the 1980s. Hilary's dissertation project compares and connects the histories of difference in both places, centering the perspectives of Soviet and South African citizens who engaged each other as they moved back and forth.
Learn More >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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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.
Learn More >Article
Interview
Published November 8, 2023
Mapping the Los Angeles Ethnoburbs: An Interview with Margaret Crawford
In this interview, Aidan Lee, a PhD student in the UC Berkeley Department of History and a 2022-2023 Matrix Communications Scholar, interviewed Margaret Crawford (shown above), Director of Urban Design, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design in the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, about her research on California's “ethnoburbs,” and why they are now permanent features of America’s built landscape.
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