Social Sciences (Faculty & Staff)

Nancy Chodorow, an esteemed sociologist, psychoanalyst and professor emerita at UC Berkeley, passed away on Oct. 14. She was 81.

Chodorow joined the Berkeley Sociology Department in 1986 after graduating from Radcliffe College in 1966 and receiving her Ph.D. in sociology from Brandeis University in 1975.

While at Brandeis, she studied under sociologist Philip Slater, whose work on mother-son relationships inspired Chodorow to examine why there was no extensive literature on mother-daughter relationships. Her research on them ultimately culminated in her dissertation, later...

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools are a daily reality at Berkeley Social Sciences. Faculty, students and alumni are embracing AI's ability to speed research, uncover new insights and prepare students for changing careers.

But they are also warning about the risks of letting chatbots think for us as AI tools such as large language models (LLMs) also present a growing concern for research ethics and teaching across the Division.

"AI is here to stay, but our responsibility is to ensure it serves student learning and research rather than shortcutting it," Social...

When do doctors stop looking like healers and start seeming like salespeople? The answer lies in how they discuss the cost of care, according to a UC Berkeley Sociology study.

In Berkeley Sociology Professor Eliza Brown’s recent paper, “Doctor, how much does it cost? Moral values and price talk in a stratified consumer medical market,”she explores how doctors talk about money differently in various fertility...

At first, studying meat consumption in Germany may seem like a niche topic. But for UC Berkeley History Professor John Efron, meat offers a revealing lens into Jewish-German relations throughout centuries.

In his new book, “All Consuming: Germans, Jews, and the Meaning of Meat,” published earlier this year, Efron explores how meat in Germany from the Middle Ages until modern times – used in real and symbolic terms – served to distinguish Jews from Christians, along with Jews from each other. It simultaneously brought...