Humanities and Culture

Past Projects – 1970s

• The Transformation of the Idea of Progress: Since the 17th century, the belief in “progress” had been the underlying ideology of Western Civilization. By the 1960s and 1970s, however, this belief in progress had been eroded, as American society witnessed unanticipated consequences of scientific and technological advances, such as environmental degradation, increasingly destructive tools of warfare, and the unequal distribution of material wealth. In 1979, the Academy convened a group of business people, public officials, and scholars from the physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities to discuss the transformation in attitudes toward the inevitability of material, intellectual, and moral progress to improve the condition of mankind. The resulting volume of essays is a valuable historical record of how major thinkers reacted at the time to changing expectations for the future of society and culture.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1979-1982
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: Gabriel A. Almond and Marvin Chodorow (both of Stanford University), and Roy Harvey Pearce (University of California, San Diego)
  RESULTING PUBLICATION: “Progress and its Discontents,” Gabriel A. Almond, Marvin Chodorow and Roy Harvey Pearce. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982. (out of print)
  SOURCE OF FUNDING: Rockefeller Foundation
  
  
• The American Academy and National Academy of Sciences Joint Committee on UNESCO: In November 1974, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s General Council condemned Israel for undertaking certain archaeological excavations in Jerusalem. The Council called for withholding UNESCO assistance from Israel until it ended these practices, and rejected Israel’s request to participate in UNESCO regional activities as a member of the European region. The U.S. Congress subsequently voted to withhold financial support for UNESCO. As a member of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, the Academy formed a special committee to examine, and consider Academy action in response to, the “politicization” of UNESCO. The resulting study is a record of politicization within UNESCO, including the responses to Israel’s actions, as well as previous cases. The report serves as a basis for considering ways in which political actions can be avoided in the future, therefore strengthening UNESCO’s effectiveness in accomplishing the functions for which it was designed.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1975-1978
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Daniel G. Partan (Boston University School of Law)
  RESULTING PUBLICATION: “Documentary Study of the Politicization of UNESCO,” Daniel G. Partan. Cambridge: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1975. (out of print)
  SOURCE OF FUNDING: Ford Foundation
  COLLABORATING ORGANIZATIONS: U.S. National Committee for UNESCO, National Academy of Sciences
  
  
• National Humanities Center: In response to the suggestion of two Fellows, the Academy in 1973 formed a planning committee to explore the development and creation in the United States of an institute for advanced humanistic studies, somewhat analogous to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. For the next five years, the Academy served as the institutional base and catalyst for the planning and development activities associated with this effort. In 1978, the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park near Raleigh, North Carolina, opened its doors, with Academy Fellow Charles Frankel serving as its first director. The NHC is the only major independent American institute for advanced study in all fields of the humanities. Each year, it supports 40 fellows who pursue individual and collaborative humanistic research. By encouraging excellence in scholarship, the Center insures the continuing strength and importance of the liberal arts and the humanities in American life.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1973-1978
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: Morton Bloomfield (Harvard University), Gregory Vlastos (Princeton University), and John Voss (American Academy)
  SOURCES OF FUNDING: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, group of North Carolina business leaders under the chairmanship of Archie K. Davis, of Winston-Salem
  COLLABORATING ORGANIZATIONS: Triangle Universities Center for Advanced Study, Inc., Duke University, North Carolina State University, University of North Carolina
  
  
• Ethnicity: Despite its far-reaching effects as a contributor to some of the most catastrophic events of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the term “ethnicity” is fairly new; it was only introduced to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972. That same year, the Academy convened a conference with the goal of assessing the widespread phenomenon of “ethnicity,” which was becoming an important and explanatory factor in the political arena throughout the world. The group addressed the question: Was there really something new occurring? The Academy study explored the nature of ethnic identity in general, theoretical terms, as well as the political and social realities in selected geographic areas of the world where ethnic conflict was then found. The resulting 1975 volume was a path breaker for a field — ethnic studies — that has since become a major area of study and a basis for conflict and policy formulation.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1972-1975
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: Daniel P. Moynihan and Nathan Glazer (both of Harvard University)
  RESULTING PUBLICATION: “Ethnicity: Theory and Experience,” eds. Nathan Glazer and Daniel P Moynihan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975. (out of print)
  SOURCE OF FUNDING: Ford Foundation
  
  

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