John G. Levi discusses access to justice, and how many low-income Americans have significant difficulty navigating our country’s legal system on their own.

Librarian of the Congress James H. Billington, historian and scholar John Hope Franklin, and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will receive the Public Good Award from the two organizations in recognition of their significant contributions to the advancement of learning and knowledge.

Sheldon Pollock explores the fate of philology amid far-reaching social and technological developments.

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.

By Poul Erik Christiansen, former Raymond Frankel Nuclear Security Policy Fellow at the Academy

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences hosted a distinguished group of judges, attorneys, human rights specialists, and academics to discuss whether an International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC) would contribute to global peace and security and, if so, how it might be established.

The Academy’s 2017th Stated Meeting on February 11, 2015, featured members of the Catalyst Collaborative@MIT performing a staged reading of Mr g, a novel by Alan Lightman. Mr g is the story of creation as narrated by God (Mr g). In it, Mr g’s uncle Deva and aunt Penelope give him advice as he sets about creating the universe; he also spars with a Satan-like character about various ethical and philosophical issues raised by his creation, especially when intelligent life emerges.

At a meeting sponsored by the American Academy, the Royal Society, and the Carnegie Institution for Science, Wendy Freedman (Crawford H. Greenewalt Chair and Director of Carnegie Observatories at the Carnegie Institution for Science) and Martin Rees (Fellow of Trinity College; Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge; Astronomer Royal; and Visiting Professor at Imperial College London and at Leicester University) discussed what we know and do not know about the universe.

"Early encounters with poverty and harsh conditions played a major role in fueling my research on child maltreatment. I have always preferred addressing complexity over simplicity, and this has led to a multilevel approach in my research."

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

Richard Brodhead, president of Duke University, addresses the future of liberal arts education.

Lassina Zerbo, Rose E. Gottemoeller, Siegfried Hecker, and Robert Rosner participated in a discussion on the prospects for ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and the challenges presented by nuclear testing.

For centuries, humans have sought to enhance their natural appearance and abilities through medicine, surgery, exercise, and education. Today, performance enhancement is most often associated with drugs taken by athletes and college students to improve physical and mental performance.

As part of the Academy’s 2017 Induction weekend, Kathryn D. Sullivan discussed her experiences as a NASA astronaut and participated in a conversation with David M. Rubenstein.

Select Prizes and Awards to Members

“The bottom line is that despite the profound global threat of pandemics, there remains no global health mechanism to force parties to act in accordance with global health interests,” write Paul Wise and Michele Barry in the Fall 2017 issue of Daedalus.