Economic historian and labor economist Claudia Goldin is receiving the the Talcott Parsons Prize from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She has done trailblazing research, analysis, and writing exploring the role of women within the U.S. economy and globally. The prize, first awarded in 1974, honors sociologist Talcott Parsons, a former president of 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.

An Academy event explored the interplay between artificial intelligence and human memory to understand the threats and opportunities that emerge when they interact. How does machine learning shape our perception of history, identity, and truth?

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Grants will support the Academy’s Humanities Indicators (www.HumanitiesIndicators.org), the first comprehensive collection of statistical data about the humanities in the United States.

The Academy’s New Haven Program Committee, in partnership with Yale University’s MacMillan Center, hosted a conversation on national and international policies for slowing global warming that featured William Nordhaus (Yale University), recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The program included remarks from Pinelopi Goldberg (Yale University; formerly, The World Bank Group) and Scott Barrett (Columbia University) as well as introductions from Steven Wilkinson (Yale University) and David Oxtoby (American Academy of Arts & Sciences).

As the nation grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic, venues closed, employment plummeted, and uncertainty affected every facet of the cultural field. Simultaneously, the renewed racial justice reckoning that swept the country last summer spurred an assessment of inequities in the arts. Leaders of arts organizations were confronted by difficult decisions and significant opportunities as they navigated these crises and attempted to support both the arts and artists.

Saving democracy might require mandatory voting — and Massachusetts can lead the way. Miles Rapoport, of the Academy's Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, and Alex Keyssar make the case for universal voting.

Lawrence Goldstein moderated a panel discussion about scientific advances and their impact on society with J. Craig Venter, Lisa Madlensky, and John H. Evans at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in La Jolla, California.

Over the last few years, organizations across the United States – corporations, universities, and nonprofits like the American Academy – have begun to reflect on their ties to slavery, Native genocide, and other troubling elements of American history. The Academy’s virtual event on “Reckoning with Organizational History” explored why historical self-examination matters and what can be gained from these studies.

Since 2007, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences reports, four-year universities have reduced their number of departments offering art history, English, languages, history, linguistics, literature and religion. The proportion of students who major in the humanities in the United States has fallen from a high of nearly one in five in the late 1960s to one in 20 in 2015.

Alexei V. Filippenko discusses supernovae and the accelerating expansion of the universe.

The Spring 2015 issue of Dædalus on “Successful Aging of Societies” explores the opportunities and challenges facing the United States as it undergoes an unprecedented demographic transformation.

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.

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American Academy of Arts and Sciences Paper Assesses How Industry, Regulators Have Applied Lessons Learned