Jazz: it has been called both cool and hot, earthy and avant-garde, intellectual and primitive. It is improvisational music touted for the freedom it permits its players, but in its heyday was largely composed and tightly arranged. It tells a story about race in America: not only because African American musicians were so central in its creation and African American audiences so important in their creative responses to it, but because whites played such a dominant role in its dissemination through records and performance venues and its ownership as intellectual and artistic property. But is jazz a relic of the past, or does it continue to have meaning and influence for today’s artists and audiences? And while it may still be present, does it still matter?

On June 21, 2018, meteorologist Jeff Berardelli printed an image representing global temperature change onto a tie and wore it on a CBS broadcast. Other meteorologists followed his lead, and on the first day of summer every year since, broadcasters have used these ties and similar pins and necklaces to spark conversations about climate, policy solutions, and local environmental changes.

Recent surveys administered by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Alliance for Museums, Americans for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts show that U.S. cultural institutions enjoy strong public approval. However, despite that high regard, studies reveal a decline in engagement with many of these institutions, particularly since the pandemic.

In a daylong symposium, the American Academy's Commission on the Arts explored the integration of arts, humanities, and STEM in higher education.

Explanation for the estimates included in the state profiles, which were generated from the American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Public Use Microdata Sample.

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences has released a publication designed to help colleges and universities address a defining academic and societal challenge: preparing young people today with the knowledge, skills, and habits to sustain a healthy constitutional democracy. Preparing Students for Civic Life: A Guide for Higher Education Leaders includes strategies and case studies.

Academy member James Fallows includes Our Common Purpose as one of three developments that shed light on how the parts of America that still work can be applied to the parts that need help most.

Amid increasing concern over the extent to which the public values scientific evidence, a new report from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences offers an in-depth examination of the current state of trust in science among Americans.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has named Jenny Bulstrode the recipient of the 2018 Sarton Prize for History of Science in recognition of her achievement and promise as an emerging scholar in the field.

From the Archives

While the world’s economy is increasingly global, fewer American students are studying how to speak a language other than English. That’s a backward slide that hurts the nation’s ability to compete economically and diminishes the overall quality of a typical American education. Citing Academy report on "America's Languages," the editorial board of the News & Observer makes the case for improving foreign language instruction.

The cochairs of the Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship issued a statement in advance of the midterm elections - identifying threats to free, fair, and participatory elections and ways to address them.

Is jazz a relic of the past, or does it continue to have meaning and influence for today’s artists and audiences? And while it may still be present, does it still matter? The Spring 2019 issue of Dædalus, “Why Jazz Still Matters,” explores that very question.

The Academy's publication, Habits of Heart and Mind, was included in an Opinion piece by Daniel Stid (American Enterprise Institute) on the importance of local approaches to rebuilding civic culture and strengthening democracy.

The Global Security and International Affairs program area draws on the expertise of policy-makers, practitioners, and scholars to foster knowledge and inform innovative and more substantial policies that address crucial issues affecting the global community. Projects underway in this area engage with pressing strategic, development, and moral questions that underpin relations among people, communities, and states worldwide. Each initiative embraces a broad conception of security as the interaction among human, national, and global security imperatives. Project recommendations move beyond the idea of security as the absence of war toward higher aspirations of collective peace, development, and justice.

Academy Publications