From the Archives

Greater attention to consumer attitudes and behavior could speed adoption of alternative energy technologies that would save the United States billions of dollars every year.

Danielle Allen, cochair of the Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, makes the case for enlarging the U.S. House of Representatives. The first recommendation of Our Common Purpose calls for enlarging the House of Representatives.

Corruption can be ruinous, destroying nations, institutions, communities, individuals, the environment, and the very notion of public trust. Corruption self-reinforces, respects no law or border, and reproduces like disease. The Summer 2018 issue of Dædalus features fifteen essays exploring the nature of modern global corruption—and how to defeat it.

How did humanities departments fare during the recent recession? How are departments coming to terms with fast-changing technologies, and preparing their students for the workforce? Today the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is releasing the results of a wide-ranging survey of 12 disciplines that offers answers to those questions and many others on the state of the humanities in higher education.

Norm Augustine and Neal Lane, cochairs of Academy project on “New Models for U.S. Science and Technology Policy,” argue for a coherent national roadmap to strengthen U.S. R&D, basic research in particular, and to drive American innovation throughout the 21st century.

On June 21, 2018, meteorologist Jeff Berardelli printed an image representing global temperature change onto a tie and wore it on a CBS broadcast. Other meteorologists followed his lead, and on the first day of summer every year since, broadcasters have used these ties and similar pins and necklaces to spark conversations about climate, policy solutions, and local environmental changes.

A robust system of publication exchanges existed among societies in the 18th and 19th centuries. From this the Academy retains a selection of publications, such as an illustrated volume of the "Flora Batava".

A new study from the American Academy's Humanities Indicators project reveals trends among U.S. residents, and the impact of respondents’ political leanings, socioeconomic status, gender, and race.

Jazz: it has been called both cool and hot, earthy and avant-garde, intellectual and primitive. It is improvisational music touted for the freedom it permits its players, but in its heyday was largely composed and tightly arranged. It tells a story about race in America: not only because African American musicians were so central in its creation and African American audiences so important in their creative responses to it, but because whites played such a dominant role in its dissemination through records and performance venues and its ownership as intellectual and artistic property. But is jazz a relic of the past, or does it continue to have meaning and influence for today’s artists and audiences? And while it may still be present, does it still matter?

Five emerging poets of exceptional promise and distinguished achievement to receive Academy prize in honor of May Sarton.

Announcing the launch of a new report from the Academy's working group on defining civic culture, this OpEd in the Seattle Times explains the meaning of civic culture, why it’s central to American constitutional democracy and how to foster it in our communities.

Cochair Barry Bloom and the Academy's Public Trust in Vaccines report are cited in an article discussing the surge in measles cases in the U.S.

“Anticorruption: How to Beat Back Political & Corporate Graft” explores the nature of modern global corruption – and how to defeat it. Highlighting examples from the United States, Brazil, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Nigeria, and Singapore, the authors in this issue – including both academics and law-makers – offer innovative, strategic, and practical recommendations to target public and private corruption.

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences has launched the Commission on Reimagining Our Economy, an interdisciplinary and nonpartisan multiyear effort to rethink the principles that drive economic decision making and to recommend policies that enable opportunity for all.

Guest essay in the New York Times by Katherine J. Cramer and Jonathan D. Cohen shares insights from the Academy's Commission on Reimagining Our Economy to help explain the disconnect between positive standard economic indicators and the negative views Americans have of the economy.

"The planet is increasingly showing signs of climate change." Former Vice President Al Gore discusses the climate crisis - and how we can address it - during an Academy event held at the Salk Institute.

William Henry Pickering, a Member of the Academy and an instructor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, photographed a total eclipse of the sun...