Matrix Podcast

Recorded on March 18, 2025, this video features a talk by Alexander F. Roehrkasse , Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Butler University. Roehrkasse's research focuses on inequality, victimization, punishment, families and children, and quantitative and historical methods. His work has been published in the American Sociological Review, Demography, Proceedings of the National Acad...

Psychedelics are steadily moving from the fringes of counterculture to the heart of mainstream society, driven by a growing body of research and shifting public perception. Once relegated to underground movements, substances like psilocybin, LSD, and MDMA are now being explored for their potential in treating mental health conditions such as depression, PTSD, and anxiety. High-profile studies at i...

One measure of the fragile state of many democracies is the way in which public universities have come under attack around the world. A new podcast series , produced as part of the Global Democracy Commons project, seeks to address the myriad forces seeking to foreclose public universities as spaces of critique and democratic protest across the globe. The series explores diverse trends such as rel...

As wildfires grow more frequent and devastating, they expose vulnerabilities in infrastructure, governance, and community preparedness. Tackling this escalating threat demands interdisciplinary solutions that address not just the immediate risks but also the broader systemic changes driving extreme weather events. Recorded on February 18, 2025, this Matrix on Point discussion (presented by UC Berk...

Recorded on February 10, 2025, this "Authors Meet Critics" panel centered on the book  Society Despite the State: Reimagining Geographies of Order,  by Gerónimo Barrera de la Torre , Assistant Professor of Geography at UC Berkeley, and Anthony Ince , Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Human Geography at Cardiff University and British Academy Mid-Career Fellow. Professor Barrera de la Torre w...

Julia Sizek is a writer and anthropologist who studies the California desert and rural land management more broadly. Her work focuses on the politics of land in the California desert, including: the cultural politics of conservation acquisition in the railroad checkerboard, the rhetoric of environmental impact reporting, and the legal geographies of off-highway vehicle use. In addition to this wor...

Fringe politics today is highly diverse and dynamic, reflecting the rapid social, technological, and economic changes of the 21st century. While the term "fringe" suggests ideas or movements outside the political mainstream, many fringe ideologies have increasingly influenced, or even reshaped, national and global political landscapes. Recorded on February 4, 2025, this panel brought together a gr...

As one of the nation's agricultural powerhouses, California's farming industry stands at a critical juncture. Climate change, labor availability and migration, and rapidly evolving technologies are reshaping the landscape of agriculture in the Golden State. This panel, presented as part of the UC Berkeley Social Science Matrix California Spotlight series, brought together experts to analyze these...

The American election closed out a year of momentous elections. Almost two decades on from the financial crisis of 2007 that helped unleash a wave of authoritarian, populist, and nativist movements in global democracies, a range of social and political forces have reshaped elections around the world. What do the election results tell us about the health or fragility of global democracy, and how mi...

This episode of the Matrix Podcast features an interview with Tara Chandra , a consultant and independent researcher who received a PhD in in Political Science with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from UC Berkeley. Chandra's research focuses on the intersection of gender and international security. Prior to beginning her PhD, she worked in foreign policy in Washington...

In this "New Directions" panel, recorded on December 2, 2024, an interdisciplinary group of UC Berkeley graduate students explored the evolving dynamics of work, management, and labor organization. The panel featured research by three current Berkeley PhD students: William Darwell (Jurisprudence and Social Policy), Kristy Kim (Economics), and Vera Parra (Sociology). The panel was moderated by John...

Recorded on December 3, 2024, this podcast episode features an Authors Meet Critics panel on Sin Padres, Ni Papeles: Unaccompanied Migrant Youth Coming of Age in the United States by Stephanie L. Canizales , Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley and Faculty Director of the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative. Professor Canizales was joined in conversation by Kristina Lovato ,...

Recorded on November 13, 2024, this Authors Meet Critics" panel centered on the book Authoritarian Absorption: The Transnational Remaking of Epidemic Politics in China , by Yan Long , Assistant Professor in the UC Berkeley Department of Sociology. Professor Long was joined in conversation by Matthew Kohrman , Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University; and Rachel...

Gold Okafor is a PhD candidate in social and personality psychology at UC Berkeley. She investigates racial and gender disparities through emotion research. Her research questions include, "how does the race and gender of an emotional person influence the judgments of the emotional person?" For example, how is an angry Black woman judged differently from an angry White woman, and what are the down...

Recorded on October 25, 2024, this panel examined the shifting demographic and political forces that are redefining the traditional bases of the Democratic and Republican parties and their efforts to build new electoral coalitions. Panelists analyzed voter trends and realignment along key dimensions, including gender, age, race and ethnicity, and explored how issues like the economy, abortion, imm...

Global Democracy Commons Podcast: Episode 2 In the run up to the American election we talked to Todd Wolfson , the new President of AAUP, about how public disinvestment from higher education and the culture wars have transformed colleges in ways that make them less democratic places — and imperil democracy across the country. A transcript of this episode is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu...

Over the past few years, Arlie Hochschild has been in conversation with citizens of Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia; Jenny Reardon has been biking through her home state of Kansas, talking to farmers, ranchers and other denizens of the prairie; and Lisa Pruitt has straddled the rural-urban divide over the course of her life in Arkansas and California and as a scholar of rural legal...

Recorded on October 9, 2024, this video features an Authors Meet Critics panel on the book Partisan Nation: The Dangerous New Logic of American Politics in a Nationalized Era , by Paul Pierson , the John Gross Distinguished Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley, and Eric Schickler , the Jeffrey & Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Institute of Government...

War is back. Open military operations in Europe and the Middle East have driven an escalation of geopolitical tensions in those regions. The conduct of warfare is changing, too, fueled by the deployment and sometimes live-testing of new technologies. Meanwhile, a new cold war seems to be settling in. The growth of China's economic power and worldwide influence has triggered proliferating sovereign...

One measure of the fragile state of many democracies is the way in which public universities have come under attack around the world. A new monthly podcast series, produced as part of the Global Democracy Commons project, seeks to address the myriad forces seeking to foreclose public universities as spaces of critique and democratic protest across the globe.   The series explores diverse trends su...

On Sept. 16, 2024, Social Science Matrix hosted an Authors Meet Critics panel focused on the book Puta Life: Seeing Latinas, Working Sex , by Juana María Rodríguez , Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. In Puta Life , Juana María Rodríguez probes the ways that sexual labor and Latina sexuality become visual phenomena. Drawing on state archives, illustrated biographies, doc...

While recent news has highlighted how prisoners have fought wildfires, prison labor is not a new phenomenon. Although incarcerated people have built highways, dams, and buildings, their contributions to American infrastructure are often made invisible. Both Elizabeth Hargrett and Xander Lenc have studied how prisoner labor has shaped America's infrastructure with a focus on North Carolina and Cali...

This episode of the Matrix Podcast features Matrix Postdoctoral Fellow Julia Sizek interviewing Ross Doll and Coleman Mahler, two scholars from different disciplines whose work focuses on the modernization of China. Ross Doll is Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow in the UC Berkeley Department of Geography. He researches agrarian change in Asia drawing on political ecology, cultural geography, and...

This episode of the Matrix Podcast features an interview with Jenna Wells and Felicia Zerwas, who at the time of the interview were Ph. D. candidates in the UC Berkeley Department of Psychology. The interview was conducted by Julia Sizek, Matrix Postdoctoral Fellow. Jenna Wells is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University. At the time of the interview,...

For this episode of the Matrix Podcast, J.T. Jamieson , a 2022-2023 Matrix Communications Scholar , interviewed Bernadette Pérez , Assistant Professor of History at UC Berkeley. Pérez is a historian of the United States who specializes in the histories of Latinx and Indigenous peoples in the West. Her current research focuses on migrant sugar beet workers in Colorado, and explores intersections be...