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).

This fall the Academy Archives embarks on a new project to clean, repair, rehouse, and digitize many important documents from the Academy's early years, as well as a unique collection of records to related to the family of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford.

Institutions are critical to our personal and societal well-being. They facilitate relationships; they regulate behavior. They develop and disseminate knowledge, enforce the law, keep us healthy, and uphold social and religious norms.

From the Archives

How to improve Congress? An opinion feature in the New York Times highlights bold ideas to make Congress better, including a link to the Academy's report, "The Case for Enlarging the House of Representatives.” The opinion piece and the report explain how expanding Congress would make it more representative, better serve voters, and keep the institution in line with the Founders’ vision.

By Maggie Boyd, Associate Archivist at the Academy

Across many dimensions, U.S.-China relations are under strain. Amid ongoing debates about tariffs, rare earth minerals, technology, and Taiwan, one challenge stands out: nuclear risk fueled by increasing nuclear competition and a lack of risk reduction mechanisms. China currently has an estimated six hundred nuclear warheads and that number is expected to reach one thousand by 2030. At the same time, global nuclear risks are rising as the arms control regime weakens, with countries withdrawing from treaties and the last remaining U.S.-Russia treaty set to expire in February 2026. Adding to the tension, in October 2025, President Donald Trump ordered the resumption of nuclear weapons testing prior to a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jingping. Without an arms control agreement or risk reduction measures between the United States and China, experts warn of a potential arms race and the risk that overreaction or crisis escalation could lead to nuclear conflict.

Martha Nussbaum Will Receive Randel Award and Deliver Remarks at April Event

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John E. Bryson (elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011) passed away peacefully at his home in San Marino, California, on May 13, 2025. He left behind his wife Louise (elected to the American Academy in 2010), four daughters, eight grandchildren, two sisters, and a consequential life of civic, governmental, business, and philanthropic leadership.

Sterling Speirn served on the 35-member Academy commission and talks about his life's work and this initiative of "civic, cultural and political reforms that could inspire a democratic renaissance at this crucial moment."

Prefatory note from Academy President Jonathan Fanton in the Bulletin inviting members to read about the work of the Academy and hoping they discover that members are engaged in the “positive programs” that Howard Mumford Jones imagined.

On March 31, 1999, Jared Diamond presented a condensed version of his talk on "How to Get Rich."

As I reflect on my first few months as president of the Academy, one of the great joys has been getting to know our extraordinary fellowship of members. As of this writing, I have had the opportunity to visit our vibrant member communities in North Carolina, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, New York, Southern California, Chicago, and, of course, the Academy’s home in the Boston-Cambridge area. In each location, I have been awed by our fellow members: their achievements, their passions, their hopes for the future. The articles in this issue also represent the power of the local–with deliberations in San Diego, New York City, and Los Angeles.

At an Academy event held in Seattle, Washington, author Annie Proulx described some surprising places her research has led: from accusations of plagiarism against Alfred, Lord Tennyson to obsessive lepidopterists and images of long-lost swamplands. Following her opening remarks, she joined Shawn Wong, professor of English, in conversation.

In Memoriam: Francis M. Bator

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.

When forced to decide between a career in biochemistry or psychology in the spring of 1950, Jerome Kagan chose the latter because of a gnawing puzzlement provoked by the observation that apparently sane people living in the same community held different beliefs about love, honesty, and whom was entitled to respect and whom to scorn.