Much of the attention about the humanities in higher education tends to focus on four-year colleges and universities (and more specifically, on the declining number of students who major in the humanities). In recent years, the American Academy’s Humanities Indicators (HI) have been exploring the growing presence of the humanities in the community college sector.

The Academy conducted a day of special briefings for Congressional staff in January 2023 on issues related to nuclear arms control. The day including a large briefing -- "The Doomsday Clock and Today’s Nuclear Landscape” -- as well as individual office visits. The conversations were part of the Academy's “Promoting Dialogue on Arms Control and Disarmament” project.

The two-day forum, part of a project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, led by the Freeman Spogli Institute’s Karl Eikenberry and Stephen Krasner, gathered experts to examine trends in civil wars and solutions moving forward.

Language immersion is needed to help address global challenges, yet U.S. citizens are falling behind. Nicholas B. Dirks, member of the Academy's Commission on Language Learning, offers his commentary.

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.

The opening program of the 2022 Induction weekend featured a conversation between David M. Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma that explored the meaning and honor of Academy membership, the power and universality of music, and the importance of the arts, culture, and education, among other topics. An edited version of their conversation follows.

A new publication, which emerged from the Academy's Our Common Purpose work, proposes alternatives to the “winner-take-all” system used in most U.S. elections. The proposed alternatives have the potential to reduce partisan divides and virtually eliminate gerrymandering.

On April 11, 2019, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences presented the Rumford Prize to six scientists for the invention and refinement of optogenetics. The awardees are Ernst Bamberg, Professor and Director of the Department of Biophysical Chemistry at Max-Planck Institute of Biophysics; Edward Boyden, Y. Eva Tan Professor of Neurotechnology, Associate Professor of Biological Engineering and Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT’s Media Lab and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Co-Director of the MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering; Peter Hegemann, Professor and Head of the Department for Biophysics at Humboldt University of Berlin; Gero Miesenböck, Waynflete Professor of Physiology and Director of the Center for Neural Circuits and Behavior at the University of Oxford; Georg Nagel, Professor at the University of Wuerzburg (Bavaria); and Karl Deisseroth, D. H. Chen Professor of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Lucia Rothman-Denes, A. J. Carlson Professor of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology at the University of Chicago, introduced the prize recipients and presented the award. Edward Boyden accepted the award on behalf of all the prize recipients. An edited version of his acceptance remarks appears below.

A United States correspondent for Le Monde provides readers in France with some context for the Academy's proposals for reinventing American democracy and finds Our Common Purpose noteworthy.

Select Prizes and Awards to Members

Russia's military -- among the world's largest and with nuclear weapons and stockpiles that remain a global concern -- suffers from severe desertion problems, a lack of qualified officers, a breakdown in the conscription system, rampant corruption, and a deficit of training and effectiveness, according to the contributors to a new publication "The Russian Military: Power and Policy."

Jack Fuller reflects on the speeches of Edward H. Levi, who "helped restore the belief that the Department of Justice was committed to the rule of law" and served as President of the American Academy from 1986-1989.

The Academy has launched a cross-sector Commission on Opportunities After High School. The multi-year project will bring together educators, economists, and employers to envision a new system that would help foster informed decision-making among students, enable effective planning by colleges and universities, and promote business growth.

Francis Amory Prize Symposium: Advances in Reproductive Biology and Medicine

The British Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences hosts a series of events with the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

On March 20, 2024, the Academy’s University of Chicago Program Committee hosted an evening with historian Tara Zahra. Informed by her archival research and the themes in her most recent book, Against the World: Anti-Globalism and Mass Politics Between the World Wars, Professor Zahra discussed how the forces of early-twentieth-century global instability—the Spanish flu, the Great Depression, ethnonationalism, the development of both democracies and dictatorships—can help us better understand our own contemporary political moment. Following her presentation, she joined Academy President David W. Oxtoby in a conversation about the past, present, and future of our interconnected, yet increasingly divided, world. John Mark Hansen, a member of the Academy’s Board of Directors, opened the program. The event was organized as a Jonathan F. Fanton Lecture, in honor of the past president of the Academy whose career has been dedicated to solving global issues. Jonathan F. Fanton and his wife Cynthia were in attendance. An edited version of Professor Zahra’s remarks and her conversation with President Oxtoby follows.

The University of West Georgia College of Arts and Humanities is serving as the statewide host site for discussion on a national report titled “The Heart of the Matter: the Humanities and Social Sciences” conducted by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences.

SELECT PRIZES AND AWARDS TO MEMBERS