As part of the Academy’s 2018 Induction weekend, Sonia Sotomayor (Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) participated in a conversation with David M. Rubenstein. The program, which served as the Academy’s 2072nd Stated Meeting, was the second Annual David M. Rubenstein Lecture.

This essay by Chris Mooney cogently distills off-the-record workshops for experts from the scientific community and representatives of the public to explore how scientists currently understand their obligation to the broader social and cultural contexts in which their work is received, and to examine ways to improve engagement between the scientific and public communities.

Academy member Denis Feeney has spent the last few years trying to understand why the Romans developed a literature in their Latin language, when the balance of historical probability was against this happening.

Immigration is not only where the people come from, and why they come, and whether they are forced to come; it's also how and, in the long run, whether they are received.

Civil wars can give rise to major threats to international stability, including transnational terrorism, pandemics, mass migration and refugee flows, and regional instability. Particularly serious concerns include the ways that civil conflict can contribute to the emergence of infectious diseases, undermine efforts to respond to pandemics – such as through vaccine distribution – and generate transnational terrorism with a global reach.

Harold Varmus, Susan R. Wente, Tania Baker, and Mark C. Fishman participated in a conference on ensuring the stability of the biomedical research enterprise in the United States. Richard H. Brodhead introduced the panel discussion, which was moderated by Nancy C. Andrews and Sally Kornbluth.

The Committee on Studies and Publications supports the Academy’s Council by regularly reviewing and advising on projects, considering topics for future studies, and evaluating publications, including Dædalus. Committee members from a broad range of disciplines and professions share their expertise on projects that explore critical issues, advance discussion on central questions, and offer solutions to both national and international challenges.

Two days after the election of Donald Trump as the forty-fifth president of the United States, Charles Stewart III, Lawrence D. Bobo, and Jennifer L. Hochschild discussed “Populism and the Future of American Politics.”

In a single year, 55 million Americans might face 260 million legal problems, such as fighting eviction threats from landlords, dealing with overwhelming medical bills from an unexpected illness that could lead to bankruptcy, or seeking assistance to escape abusive domestic situations. Yet only some Americans recognize that these problems are matters of civil justice. And even fewer have access to available, afford­able, and quality legal support needed to resolve these problems. This is the civil justice gap: the disparity between the legal needs of Americans and the resources available to meet those needs.

Global challenges, like pandemics, cannot be addressed by one nation alone; scientific capacity is essential in all corners of the globe to deal with COVID-19 today and the threats of tomorrow. A new Academy report, “Global Connections: Emerging Science Partners,” issued by the Challenges for International Scientific Partnerships initiative, describes the importance of strengthening collaborations between the U.S. and emerging science partner countries.

Learn more about individuals and organizations working to support language instruction in America.

Following an introduction from Robert C. Post, Linda K. Kerber discusses her work as part of a new generation of historians who have begun to study law as a cultural formation that both reflects and forms the discursive construction of collective identity in society.

The Academy presented its Emerson-Thoreau Medal to Maxine Hong Kingston for her distinguished achievement in the field of literature. The award, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, was first given to Robert Frost in 1958 and has since been presented to several notable authors, including T.S. Eliot, Hannah Arendt, Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison, and Margaret Atwood.

On October 1, 2011, the American Academy inducted its 231st class of Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members at a ceremony held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The ceremony included presentations by five new members: Frances Hamilton Arnold, David Conrad Page, Sir Adam Roberts, Annette Gordon-Reed, and William I. Miller.

An evening program at the Congressional Visitors Center in Washington, D.C., featured Commission Cochairs John W. Rowe and Richard H. Brodhead; Commission members David Brooks, Karl W. Eikenberry, Pauline Yu, and John Lithgow; Senators Lamar Alexander and Mark Warner; and Congressmen Tom Petri and David Price.

First national study of language learning in 30 years was requested from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences by a bipartisan group of members of U.S. Senate & House of Representatives

American Institutions, Society & the Public Good

John Kaag describes his time as a Visiting Scholar at the Academy (2007-2008).