Social Sciences

Urban inequality is often taught through theory and statistics. But for UC Berkeley Continuing Lecturer in Geography Seth Lunine, the most meaningful insights come from spending time with the Bay Area communities who live the realities that students study.

At a recent Social Matrix event, titled “Promise & Precarity: Exploring Oakland Through Community-Engaged Scholarship,” Lunine discussed how he combines classroom learning on racialized inequalities in urban development with hands-on research in Oakland neighborhoods. ...

The Linguistics Research Apprenticeship Practicum (LRAP) at UC Berkeley is helping reshape undergraduate research in the field of linguistics.

Designed to expand access to hands-on research and provide mentorship training for graduate students, LRAP pairs undergraduate students with graduate student mentors working on active research projects. Through this collaboration, students gain both technical skills and academic confidence while contributing to original linguistic research.

The program was initially developed in 2013 by a team of graduate students, faculty...

History Professor Jonathan Sheehan's book "On the Altar" was reviewed in The Wall Street Journal.

One of the most shocking poems in Protestant hymnbooks is William Cowper’s “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.” A 1772 meditation about the crucifixion by a man who struggled with depression all his life, the hymn dwells on Christ’s gory death and evokes the metaphor of sinners bathing in blood. “There is a fountain filled with blood, / Drawn from Immanuel’s veins; / And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, / Lose all their guilty stains.” The hymn, reprinted in...

Economics Professor Emmanuel Saez participated in an expert roundtable convened by The New York Times.

A proposed wealth tax has pitted Democrat against Democrat in California. The initiative, which a health care worker union wants to place on California’s November ballot, would apply a one-time 5 percent tax on the fortune of any Californian worth more than $1 billion. Gov. Gavin Newsom opposes it, while Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley in the U.S....