Event Recaps

In this talk recorded at BESI on October 21, sociologist Philipp Brandt shows how data scientists in the 2010s not only transformed familiar ideas into a new professional, but — for better or for worse — also devised the technical machinery for seeing the world through datasets.

In this talk, recorded at BESI on September 30, 2025, Cambridge researcher Luke Kemp explores the ways explore the ways growth-obsessed, extractive institutions like the fossil fuel industry, Big Tech, and military-industrial complexes rule our world and produce new ways of annihilating our species

In this second event in our series on democratic backsliding in the U.S., panelists from across the UC Berkeley campus touched on the weakening of Congress, Trump and the courts, the pressures on civic institutions, and the possible dynamics and implications of popular protest, among other urgent topics.

BESI associate director Amanda Behm reports from Paris on a timely workshop co-organized by BESI.

Senior researcher Samuel Trachtman reflects on a recent virtual convening with researchers and policymakers hosted by BESI.

In May, BESI convened a panel of housing researchers and policy makers to discuss the obstacles to effective housing production in blue trifectas.

37% of Americans live in states governed by blue trifectas. What opportunities and challenges does this present for Democratic Party officials?

On May 20, BESI invited expert climate policymakers and researchers to weigh in on decarbonization challenges and opportunities in blue trifectas.

Disinformation and far-right digital media expert Becca Lewis recounts how right-wing politics came to Silicon Valley decades before DOGE.

Political scientist Michael Shepherd shows how partisan politics at elite and mass levels explain the growing rural-urban health divide in the US.

BESI and UC Berkeley Sociology earlier this month hosted a conference in celebration and tribute to the work of Neil Fligstein, who recently retired from his long-time position at UC Berkeley.

Social scientist Jathan Sadowski demystifies how the two systems of technology and capitalism work together.