Social Sciences (Faculty & Staff)

Three UC Berkeley alumnae awarded MacArthur 'Genius' Fellowships

October 24, 2022

Jennifer Carlson Ph.D. '13

Headshot of Jennifer CarlsonCarlson was recognized for her research on "the motivations, assumptions, and social forces that drive gun ownership and shape gun culture in the United States." Carlson has been closely studying...

PBS NewsHour features campus work to repatriate artifacts to Indigenous tribes

October 20, 2022

The national program PBS NewsHour recently visited UC Berkeley and examined how the school is working to repatriate artifacts to Indigenous tribes. Many of the artifacts are held in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.

The story examined all the ways the museum — and the campus — have changed their ways of interacting with the many artifacts collected from Indigenous tribes in California.

Is the Self an Illusion?

October 13, 2022
Is the self just a fiction we create to make sense of a complicated world?

Most of us think it’s obvious that we have a self, but famously, both Buddhism and British philosopher David Hume are skeptical that such a thing exists. What in the world could it mean to deny that the self exists? Could ‘the self’ just refer to a series of perceptions and feelings we have over time? If so, then whose perceptions and feelings are they? Is there any way Buddhism could have influenced Hume’s thinking on the illusory nature of the self? Josh and John question theirselves with Alison Gopnik from UC...

Modern Greek Studies Foundation donates $1 million to create the Nikos Kazantzakis Visiting Scholar Program at the UC Berkeley Modern Greek and Hellenic Studies Program

September 22, 2022


PRESS RELEASE: September 22, 2022
Contact: Professor Christine Philliou at philliou@berkeley.edu ; Chris Gus Kanios at cgkanios@yahoo.com; 415-420-1916

The Modern Greek and Hellenic Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley, and The Modern Greek Studies Foundation jointly announce the establishment of the Nikos Kazantzakis Visiting Scholar Program. The program is made possible by a $1 million...

WTO announces winner of 2022 Essay Award for Young Economists

September 8, 2022
The winner of the 2022 WTO Essay Award for Young Economists is Mathilde Muñoz of Berkeley Stones Center, University of California. Her paper, “Trading Non-Tradables: The Implications of Europe’s Job Posting Policy”, was ranked first by the Selection Panel. She was presented with her prize of CHF 5,000 at the annual meeting of the European Trade Study Group in Groningen (the Netherlands) on 8 September 2022.

How Climate Change Became a Security Emergency: An Interview with Brittany Meché

September 1, 2022

How has climate change become a security issue? Geographer Brittany Meché argues that contemporary anxieties about climate change refugees rearticulate colonial power through international security. Through interviews with security and development experts, her research reveals how the so-called “pragmatic solutions” to climate change migration exacerbate climate change injustice.

For this interview, Julia Sizek, Matrix’s Content Curator, asked Meché about her forthcoming article in New Geographies ...

Four Professors Chosen as 2022-2023 Matrix Faculty Fellows

August 10, 2022

Four UC Berkeley professors have been selected to be the inaugural Matrix Faculty Fellows for the 2022-2023 academic year: Gašper Beguš, Assistant Professor of Linguistics; Puck Engman, Assistant Professor of History; Ethan Katz, Associate Professor of History; and Salar Mameni, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies.

The Matrix Faculty Fellows Program supports Assistant- and Associate-level faculty members at UC Berkeley for work on research that has a significant impact in multiple disciplines in the social sciences. Fellows are chosen for the impact of their work in their home...

2022 AC Excellence in Teaching Award Recipient: Brandi Summers

August 16, 2022

This year's recipient of the AC Excellence in Teaching Award is Brandi Summers, Associate Professor for Geography. Prof. Summers won the award for her class 70AC, "The Urban Experience: Race, Class, Gender and the American City".

"The diverse teaching tools and strategies created in the class are part of my commitment to engaged pedagogy, which has developed based on the presumption that classrooms are spaces that hold promise for radical change and growth within and outside the classroom. As an engaged teacher, what I’m really asking is that both me and my students take risks, to...

2022 Great Immigrants Recipient: Karen Nakamura

July 4, 2022

The Great Immigrants is a program created by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, hosted every Fourth of July. The program is meant to honor the legacy of their founder Andrew Carnegie by recognizing an extraordinary group of immigrants who have made notable contributions to the progress of American society. This year Karen Nakamura, Professor of Anthropology, here at UC Berkeley, was selected as one of the 34 honorees.

An anthropologist working at the intersection of race, gender, disability, and mental illness, Karen Nakamura uses a range of avenues to...

Where Are the Asian Americans in American History?

August 10, 2022

Over the past two years, the United States has experienced an enormous surge of anti-Asian violence. According to a new report from the Brookings Institute, 1 in 6 Asian Americans reported personally experiencing a hate crime in 2021. In the first half of 2022, 1 in 3 Asian Americans have been told to “go back to your country.” As a result, the Pew Research Center...