Colloquia
Sociology Department Colloquium Series
Blumer Room - 402 Social Sciences Building
MONDAYS, 2:00 - 3:30 PM
[unless otherwise noted]
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Blumer Room - 402 Barrows Hall
A New Jim Code?
From everyday apps to complex algorithms, technology has the potential to hide, speed, and even deepen discrimination, while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to racist practices of a previous era. In this talk, I present the concept of the “New Jim Code" to explore a range of discriminatory designs that encode inequity: by explicitly amplifying racial hierarchies, by ignoring but thereby replicating social divisions, or by aiming to fix racial bias but ultimately doing quite the opposite. We will also consider how race itself is a kind of tool designed to stratify and sanctify social injustice and discuss how technology is and can be used toward liberatory ends. This presentation takes us into the world of biased bots, altruistic algorithms, and their many entanglements, and provides conceptual tools to decode tech promises with sociologically informed skepticism. In doing so, it challenges us to question not only the technologies we are sold, but also the ones we manufacture ourselves.
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Blumer Room - 402 Barrows Hall
Reparative Seizure: Postcolonial Crime in the Jamaican Lotto Scam
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Blumer Room - 402 Barrows Hall
Taste and Necessity: Economic and Symbolic Influences on Food Choice in Low- and Higher-Income Families
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Blumer Room - 402 Barrows Hall
DISENFRANCHISED
The Rise and Fall of Industrial Citizenship in China
JOEL ANDREAS, AssociateProfessor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, will present his forthcoming book, Disenfranchised, with responses from Cihan Tuğal, Yan Long, and Marc Blecher
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Blumer Room - 402 Barrows Hall
That Ain’t Right. Toxic Entanglements, Urban Austerity and Environmental Racism in Flint and Detroit
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Blumer Room - 402 Barrows Hall
Pedagogy Colloquium: "Technology in the classroom: the good, the bad, the ugly,"
Wednesday, Oct 3, 4-5pm in 420 Barrows Hall
Wed. afternoon of each month, from 4-5 pm, in 420 Barrows
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Blumer Room - 402 Barrows Hall
Running Political Cover: Institutional Diversity Work in the UC
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Blumer Room - 402 Barrows Hall
Logics in Conflict? Contradictions in Campus Sexual Misconduct Adjudication
Recent coverage in the media presents a crisis of "due process" for undergraduates accused of sexual misconduct at American universities. Based on preliminary analysis of the sexual misconduct policies of 381 universities, we argue that the status of the adjudication of student misconduct is indeed problematic, but that--perhaps unsurprisingly--the story in the media is not accurate. Most university policies fail all students, not just those accused, and likely fail those experiencing misconduct far more grievously than those accused. The policies do no better on "victim protections" than they do on "due process" rights. And more fundamentally, many of the policies are incoherent and vague, in part as a result of the intersection of multiple and contradictory logics. In the context of the university, sexual violence is variously and simultaneously understood in terms of public health, crime, student conduct, civil rights, religious sin, etc.
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Blumer Room - 402 Barrows Hall
Co-sponsorship by IRLE and the Berkeley Labor Center
Blumer Room - 402 Barrows Hall
The pedagogy colloquium meets monthly to discuss diverse aspects of teaching at Berkeley, with topics suggested by group participants and occasional guest
speakers.