Matrix Podcast

Social Science Matrix
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The Matrix Podcast features interviews with social scientists from across the University of California, Berkeley campus (and beyond). It also features recordings of events, including panels and lectures. The Matrix Podcast is produced by Social Science Matrix, an interdisciplinary research center at the University of California, Berkeley.

  1. 12 JUN

    Technology and China in the New Political Economy

    The innovation, use and experience, and exchange of new and emerging technologies today are influenced by the role that China plays in global politics and economy. Recorded on April 18, 2025, this Matrix on Point panel brought together experts of the Chinese political economy and law and society in a conversation to discuss the political, economic, security, and social dimensions and complexities of technology in China’s internationalization during times of global tensions. Topics covered included the institutional foundations of China’s technological development, technology governance and industrial policy, global technology competition, and legal technology and societal impacts in today’s China. The panel featured Mark Dallas, Professor of Political Science and Science, Technology, and Society at Union College; Roselyn Hsueh, Professor of Political Science at Temple University and Visiting Scholar at the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative; and Rachel E. Stern, Professor of Law and Political Science at UC Berkeley. AnnaLee Saxenian, Professor in the School of Information, served as chair and moderator. Matrix On Point is a discussion series promoting focused, cross-disciplinary conversations on today’s most pressing issues. Offering opportunities for scholarly exchange and interaction, each Matrix On Point features the perspectives of leading scholars and specialists from different disciplines, followed by an open conversation. The panel was co-presented by the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative, and co-sponsored by the Institute of International Studies (IIS), the UC Berkeley School of Information, and the Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science. This public panel is a part of the two-day Bringing the Sector Back In conference, also co-sponsored by the Institute of East Asian Studies and the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. A video recording of this panel is available on YouTube. A transcript of this recording can be found at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/tech-and-china

    1h 24m

  2. 12 JUN

    Governing Giants: Law, Politics, and Antitrust

    Large corporations increasingly dominate markets, the flow of information, and political influence. In response, many governments have used antitrust policies in an attempt to rein in companies. Examples include investigations and cases brought by the United States and the European Union against Google, in addition to major investigations against Microsoft, Facebook, and others. Recorded on April 25, 2025, this Matrix on Point panel brought together scholars of political science, economics, and law to discuss the changing landscape of antitrust policy in an era of multinational corporations. The panel included Michael Allen, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University; Prasad Krishnamurthy, Professor of Law at UC Berkeley; and Amy Pond, Associate Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Ryan Brutger, Associate Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley, moderated. The panelists spoke about new challenges in competition policy, the domestic and international dimensions of antitrust policy, and the economic, political, and social considerations that shape antitrust policy and enforcement. The event was presented as part of Matrix On Point, a discussion series promoting focused, cross-disciplinary conversations on today’s most pressing issues. Offering opportunities for scholarly exchange and interaction, each Matrix On Point features the perspectives of leading scholars and specialists from different disciplines, followed by an open conversation. These thought-provoking events are free and open to the public. A transcript of the panel this recording is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/governing-giants.

    1h 19m

  3. 20 MAY

    150 Years of Border Control: The Legacy of the 1875 Page Act

    Recorded on April 23, 2025, this event marked the 150th anniversary of the Page Act of 1875, one of the first federal laws to restrict immigration to the United States — especially Asian immigration, as the law prohibited the importation of Asian contract workers, prostitutes (a provision targeted against Chinese women), and criminals. The interdisciplinary panel of UC Berkeley professors discussed their current work related to race, gender, or labor in US immigration history or Asian American Studies, and their thoughts on the legacies of the Page Act and related issues for the United States today. Panelists included Catherine Ceniza Choy, Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley; Cybelle Fox, Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley; Leti Volpp, Professor of Law at UC Berkeley; and Matrix Faculty Fellow Hidetaka Hirota, Associate Professor of History at UC Berkeley and Thomas Garden Barnes Chair in Canadian Studies. The panel was co-sponsored by the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative (BIMI), the UC Berkeley Department of Sociology, the Department of History, Department of Ethnic Studies, the Asian American Research Center, and the Center for Race and Gender. A transcript of this panel is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/page-act.

    1h 27m

  4. 14 MAY

    Matrix on Point: The New Gender Gap

    Are we witnessing a backlash to the progress of gender equality around the world? New research reveals a growing gender gap in attitudes across a range of topics, particularly striking among younger generations. From polarized views on social issues to contrasting expectations regarding marriage and family, this divergence in outlook between genders points to deeper societal fissures. This panel brought together experts to discuss the contours and complexities of this “new gender gap” and explore its ramifications for politics, demography, and societal cohesion. Recorded on April 7, 2025, this recording features Xiaoling Shu, Professor of Sociology at UC Davis; and Rachel Bernhard, Associate Professor of Quantitative Political Science Research Methods at Nuffield College and the University of Oxford. Kiera Hudson, Assistant Professor in the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, moderated. Matrix On Point is a discussion series promoting focused, cross-disciplinary conversations on today’s most pressing issues. Offering opportunities for scholarly exchange and interaction, each Matrix On Point features the perspectives of leading scholars and specialists from different disciplines, followed by an open conversation. These thought-provoking events are free and open to the public. This panel was co-sponsored by the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative (BESI), the UC Berkeley Department of Demography, the Berkeley Population Center, the Haas School of Business, and the Center for Research on Social Change.   A transcript of this event is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/new-gender-gap

    1h 1m

  5. 6 MAY

    Authors Meet Critics: "Native Lands: Culture and Gender in Indigenous Territorial Claims"

    Recorded on April 4, 2025, this video features an Authors Meet Critics panel on the book Native Lands: Culture and Gender in Indigenous Territorial Claims, by Shari Huhndorf, Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. Professor Shari Huhndorf was joined in conversation by Lauren Kroiz, Associate Professor of History of Art at UC Berkeley, and Luanne Redeye, Assistant Professor of Art Practice at UC Berkeley. Bernadette Pérez, Assistant Professor of History at UC Berkeley, moderated. The Social Science Matrix Authors Meet Critics book series features lively discussions about recently published books authored by social scientists at UC Berkeley. For each event, the author discusses the key arguments of their book with fellow scholars. The event was co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Center for Race and Gender (CRG) and the Department of Ethnic Studies, the History of Art Department, and the Joseph A. Myers Center for Research on Native American Issues. About the Book Native Lands analyzes the role of visual and literary culture in contemporary Indigenous campaigns for territorial rights. In the post-1960s era, Indigenous artists and writers have created works that align with the goals and strategies of new Native land-based movements. These works represent Native histories and epistemologies in ways that complement activist endeavors, while also probing the limits of these political projects, especially with regard to gender. The social marginalization of Native women was integral to dispossession. And yet its enduring consequences have remained largely neglected, even in Native organizing, as a pressing concern associated with the status of Indigenous people in settler nation-states. The cultural works discussed in this book provide an urgent Indigenous feminist rethinking of Native politics that exposes the innate gendered dimensions of ongoing settler colonialism. They insist that Indigenous campaigns for territorial rights must entail gender justice for Native women. A transcript of this panel is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/native-lands.

    1h 22m

  6. 23 APR

    Social, Spatial, Ecological, and Racial fixes in New Deal South Carolina: Interview with Morgan Vickers

    For this episode of the Matrix Podcast, recorded in Fall 2023, Julia Sizek interviewed Morgan P. Vickers, an Assistant Professor of Race/Racialization in the Department of Law, Societies & Justice at the University of Washington. Vickers received their Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley, and their B.A. in American Studies, Communication Studies, and Non-Fiction Writing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Their work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Simpson Center for the Humanities. Vickers is currently a Content Editor for Environmental History Now and an Executive Board member of the Black Geographies Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers (AAG). They previously worked with The Black Geographic, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Community Histories Workshop, A Red Record, and the Landscape Specialty Group of AAG. The interview focused on Vickers' research on drowned towns of the Santee-Cooper Project in South Carolina, wherein 901 families were displaced in the name of New Deal “progress.” Vickers' work highlights New Deal infrastructures, transformed ecologies (notably, swamplands), and dispossessed (racialized) populations in order to challenge myths of universal progress and narratives of purportedly moral geographies. Thematically, Vickers' work contemplates Black ecologies, placemaking, federal dam and reservoir projects, racial capitalism, moral geographies, community memory studies, and questions of belonging. Transcript A transcript of this interview is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/morgan-vickers

    44 min

  7. 23 APR

    Consequential Sentences: Computational Analyses of California Parole Hearing Transcripts

    Recorded on April 1, 2025, this video features a talk by AJ Alvero, a computational sociologist at Cornell University, presenting findings from an analysis of parole hearing transcripts in California. This talk is part of a symposium series presented by the UC Berkeley Computational Research for Equity in the Legal System Training Program (CRELS), which trains doctoral students representing a variety of degree programs and expertise areas in the social sciences, computer science and statistics. The talk was co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Berkeley Institute of Data Sciences (BIDS). Abstract In California, candidates for parole are able to present their case with the support of an attorney to commissioners appointed by the state. These hearings are professionally transcribed, making them highly amenable to a variety of social scientific questions and computational text analysis. In this talk, I will discuss a large project analyzing every parole hearing transcript in California that occurred from November 2007 until November 2019, along with a wealth of administrative data, some of which was obtained after successfully suing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). In some of our early work, we find that patterns in the text based on the words being used and who is using them (e.g., words used by the parole commissioner) have stronger explanatory power than variables used in past studies. To conclude, I will discuss forthcoming work which takes advantage of the unique structure of the transcripts. Transcript A transcript of this talk is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/AJ-Alvero

    1h 3m

  8. 23 APR

    Alex Roehrkasse: The New Contours of Mass Incarceration

    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 Academy of Sciences, Science Advances, Social Forces, and other leading journals. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from UC Berkeley. This talk is part of a symposium series presented by the UC Berkeley Computational Research for Equity in the Legal System Training Program (CRELS), which trains doctoral students representing a variety of degree programs and expertise areas in the social sciences, computer science and statistics. Co-sponsored by the Berkeley Institute of Data Sciences (BIDS). Abstract The dynamics of inequality in mass incarceration are rapidly changing and poorly understood. In this talk, I present new evidence of declining Black–White inequality and skyrocketing educational inequality in U.S. prison admissions. I qualify these findings by documenting vast racial disparities in indirect contact with the carceral system through families and neighborhoods. I conclude by discussing possible causes of recent inequality trends and potential research strategies for identifying them. Transcript A transcript of this talk is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/roehrkasse

    1h 4m
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About

The Matrix Podcast features interviews with social scientists from across the University of California, Berkeley campus (and beyond). It also features recordings of events, including panels and lectures. The Matrix Podcast is produced by Social Science Matrix, an interdisciplinary research center at the University of California, Berkeley.

Information

  • Creator
    Social Science Matrix
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2025
  • Episodes
    93
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    Copyright ©2007 - 2022 | The Regents of the University of California
  • Show Website
    Matrix Podcast