Matrix Podcast

Recorded on April 9, 2026, this Authors Meet Critics panel features the book Incommunicable: Toward Communicative Justice in Health and Medicine, by Charles Briggs, the Alan Dundes Distinguished Professor and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, co-director and graduate advisor of the UCB-UCSF Joint PhD Program in Medical Anthropology, and co-director of the Berkeley Center for Social Medicine. Professor Briggs was joined in conversation by Elinor Ochs, Distinguished Research Professor of Anthropology at UCLA, and Eric Snoey, Department of Emergency Medicine, Alameda Health System at Highland Hospital and Clinical Professor in Emergency Medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine. Armando Lara-Millán, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, moderated. The panel was co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology, the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, the Berkeley Center for Social Medicine, and the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society. About the Book In Incommunicable, Charles L. Briggs examines the long-standing presumptions that medical discourse translates easily across geographic, racial, and class boundaries. Bringing linguistic and medical anthropology into conversation with Black and decolonial theory, he theorizes the failure in health communication as incommunicability, which negatively affects all patients, doctors, and healthcare providers. Briggs draws on W. E. B. Du Bois and the work of three philosopher-physicians — John Locke, Frantz Fanon, and Georges Canguilhem — to show how cultural models of communication and health have historically racialized people of color as being incapable of communicating rationally and understanding biomedical concepts. He outlines incommunicability through a study of COVID-19 discourse, in which health professionals defined the disease based on scientific medical knowledge in ways that reduced varieties of nonprofessional knowledge about COVID-19 to "misinformation" and "conspiracy theories." This dismissal of nonprofessional knowledge led to a failure of communication that eroded trust in medical expertise. Building on efforts by social movements and coalitions of health professionals and patients to craft more just and equitable futures, Briggs helps imagine health systems and healthcare discourses beyond the oppressive weight of communicability and the stigma of incommunicability. A transcript of this recording is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/incommunicable.

On April 7, 2026, Social Science Matrix hosted an Authors Meet Critics panel on the book The Insatiable Machine: How Capitalism Conquered the World, by Trevor Jackson, Associate Professor of History at UC Berkeley. Professor Jackson was joined in conversation by Chenzi Xu, Assistant Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley, and Dylan Riley, Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley. Abhishek Kaicker, Associate Professor of History, moderated. The 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. These events are free and open to the public. This event was co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Departments of Economics, History, and Sociology. About the Book Today, virtually the entire world lives under the economic system called capitalism, and most people alive have never known another. But as the economic historian Trevor Jackson argues in this powerful book, it wasn't always capitalism, it didn't have to be capitalism, and capitalism didn't have to be this way. How did it happen? With a firm grasp on history and economics and a keen eye for the telling anecdote, Jackson explains the rise of capitalism from the discovery of the New World to the First World War. A fast-paced work of global history that explores the role of Chinese mulberry trees, Dutch tulips, and whale blubber — along with Spanish conquistadors, Mexican mine workers, and English bankers — The Insatiable Machine traces capitalism's development from the accidental construction of an international monetary system to the creation of banking, the emergence of a new form of slavery, fossil–fuel industrialization, and finally the global capitalist system spread by imperialism. A transcript for this recording is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/insatiable-machine

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

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.

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.