Rice University, in collaboration with the Houston Program Committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, hosted a panel discussion on climate action featuring academy members and guests March 18 at the Ralph S. O'Connor Building for Engineering and Science.

"In 1956, while working in the summer as a fledgling reporter for the then family-owned Hartford Courant, I persuaded the editors to let me write what turned out to be a seven-part series exposing the extent of housing segregation in 'liberal' Hartford."

In 1783, a self-described“ Bostonian Member of the American Academy… at the request of another Member,” detailed the efforts of Reverend Doctor Cotton Mather to combat smallpox through inoculation...

Private and public pushes to increase STEM education have given rise to new concerns about the value of a liberal arts education. Humanities Indicators reports that the number of bachelor’s degrees in the humanities that were earned in 2015 was down nearly 10 percent from three years earlier.

In updates released this morning, the American Academy's Humanities Indicators report that visits to historic sites, museums, and art galleries are on the rise in recent years.

By Maggie Boyd, Associate Archivist at the Academy

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.

How do we renew confidence in America’s institutions and strengthen public engagement in civic life? The Spring 2013 issue of Dædalus suggests ways in which government, corporations, nonprofits, the judiciary, and the media can inspire greater confidence in our democratic system and a renewed commitment to civil discourse.

Recent Dædalus Issues Explore Mental Health as well as Language & Social Justice in the United States

Vanesha Pravin, a lecturer in UC Merced’s Merritt Writing Program, receives prestigious May Sarton Prize for Poetry from the American Academy.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe, but Ukraine is only the most visible example of contemporary conflicts subjecting populations to systematic violence and depriving them of life-saving humanitarian assistance. In Ethiopia, Sudan, Yemen, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the eroding purchase of international humanitarian law, combined with intensifying geopolitical competition and the rapidly changing character of modern warfare, have put enormous strain on humanitarian actors. An issue of Daedalus explores the conflicts and the implications.

The environmental costs of war and how to minimize them were a focus of an Academy seminar, writes participant Saleem H. Ali in Forbes. In his article, Ali explores meeting themes including the costs of military greenhouse gas emissions, the "greening of warfare," the costs and impact of post-conflict reconstruction, and the ways military forces could engage in environmental remediation.

In a forum essay, the HULA team (Danielle Allen, Maggie Schein, Christopher Pupik Dean, and David Kidd) describes its work, which start in the education sector but are now being extended to public humanities projects.

The Academy and the Center for Strategic and International Studies launched a new book -- The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the Nuclear Age -- at a cohosted event in Washington D.C. featuring one of the volume's editors and multiple authors.

The Spring 2023 issue of Dædalus on “Delivering Humanitarian Health Services in Violent Conflicts” features essays, poetry, fiction, and visual art to illuminate the dilemmas facing humanitarian health actors and the potential for innovation in humanitarian health delivery.