Social Sciences (Faculty & Staff)

Race, Gender, and Political Speech: An Interview with Gabriella Licata

August 7, 2022

When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was insulted on the Capitol steps in July 2020, it was a brief media sensation. But what does being called an “effing bitch” mean for how we think about political speech?

Gabriella Licata, a PhD candidate in Romance Languages and Literatures at UC Berkeley, joined Julia Sizek for this episode of the Matrix Podcast to discuss how the standard language ideologies of political speech come to shape perceptions of language and people in Congress. Licata utilizes mixed methodologies to assess...

2022 Dissertation Grants Awarded: Jessica Schirmer

July 31, 2022

Congratulations to Jessica Schirmer for being one of five individuals selected as a 2022 Dissertation Grant winner.

Jessica Schirmer is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. She studies social policy and inequality in the United States. She is particularly interested in using social science to identify new political and institutional possibilities to advance democratic accountability, opportunity, and mobility through policy reform.

Her dissertation explores the growing need for affordable housing and the loss of reform momentum in...

Author and scholar Howard Besser ’75 creates a new program for Anti-Authoritarianism and Social Movements

June 28, 2022

Author and scholar Howard Besser ’75, inspired by UC Berkeley’s enduring legacy of impassioned student movements, has made generous gifts in support of future change makers. In March 2021, Besser donated $1 million to establish the Howard Besser Program for Anti-Authoritarianism and Social Movements. Later that year, Dr. Besser expanded his impact with a $2 million bequest to create The Howard Besser Early Career Chair in Anti-Authoritarianism and Social Movements. The Fund will provide endowed support for an Early Career chair, to be awarded to an...

Podcast: Scholars on using fantasy to reimagine Blackness

August 1, 2022

Five professors speaking remotely on a panelIn Berkeley Talks episode 147, a panel of scholars discusses UC Berkeley professor Darieck Scott’s new book Keeping It Unreal: Black Queer Fantasy and Superhero Comics, which explores how fantasies of Black power and triumph in superhero comics and other genres create challenges to — and respite from — white...

There’s a New Way to See When the Economy Is Going Off the Rails

August 1, 2022

The last couple of years have been the economic equivalent of driving through a mountain pass in a blizzard. Never mind predicting the next turn — investors and policymakers barely know where they are at any given moment.

Sometimes new economic data only add to the confusion: Preliminary gross domestic product figures released last week showed the US economy contracting at a 0.9% annual rate in the second quarter — while consumers kept splurging on services and workers were enjoying one of the hottest job markets in decades.

Even in calmer times, broad-based gauges like GDP...

Stone Center at UC Berkeley receives $4.85M gift for the study of wealth and income inequality

July 14, 2022

BERKELEY, CA — Wealth inequality exceeds historic records in the United States, as can be clearly seen in the research done by Gabriel Zucman, Associate Professor of Economics at the UC Berkeley Department of Economics and Faculty Director of The James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality at UC Berkeley. Thanks to a new gift of $4.85 million to the Stone Center, Zucman and co-directors Professor Emmanuel Saez and Professor Hilary Hoynes will lead an...

Armando Lara-Millán Receives ASA’s Distinguished Scholarly Book Award

July 11, 2022

Headshot of Armando Lara-MillanArmando Lara-Millán, assistant professor in UC Berkeley’s Department of Sociology, has earned the 2022 Distinguished Scholarly Book Award from the American Sociological Association. This esteemed award is known as the discipline’s highest book honor, as it recognizes the best sociology book published in the two calendar years preceding the year the book is...

Student des marie jackson: ‘Find purpose by staying centered in your passions’

July 7, 2022

I’m an Afro-Latinx, non-binary, queer, trans poet and activist. I want to be a scholar that troubles academia.

I want to reveal social inequities and conduct research that lifts the veil off the nebulous of white supremacy and post-colonial oppression. I want people to care about Central California’s rural areas and the farmers that feed us, because that’s where I’m from.

I want to write poetry that is therapeutic and disruptive. Writing that empowers my communities and the people around me. I want my family to be proud of who I am. I want my brother to have the resources he...

Letters to a transfer student: Nate Tilton

July 2, 2022

Hey Nate,

So…you got into UC Berkeley! Who would have thought a high school dropout with a GED would be able to transfer to Berkeley! You’ve come a long way and I am terribly proud of you. I know you are having some anxiety about Berkeley and about your future, but I promise it won’t be that bad. A lot of people think the school is anti-military, but do not believe the rumors. The Cal Veteran Services Center is great and the ROTC cadets on campus make it feel like you’re back on base. In reality,...

Knight and Scabini make $500K bequest to support Berkeley Neuroscience and Psychology graduate students

June 22, 2022

Robert Knight, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology and member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute (HWNI), and his wife Donatella Scabini have
Robert Knight and Donatella Scabini announced that they will bequeath half a million dollars to the Berkeley Psychology Department and HWNI to support graduate students. The gift will be split evenly between Psychology and
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