From visual arts to jazz, theater to poetry, the opening program of the Academy’s 2019 Induction weekend celebrated the arts and humanities. The event included a video featuring artist Mark Bradford; a performance by composer, pianist, and singer/songwriter Patricia Barber; remarks about the power and importance of the performing arts from theater director and scholar Harry J. Elam, Jr.; a reading by playwright Donald Margulies from his play Sight Unseen; and remarks and readings by poet, writer, and foundation leader Elizabeth Alexander.

On April 1, 2019, the American Academy and the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale presented their first joint public program, which featured a conversation between David Blight and Robert Stepto. The program, which served as the Academy’s Morton L. Mandel Public Lecture, included a welcome from Ian Shapiro. Crystal Feimster moderated the program.

A robust system of publication exchanges existed among societies in the 18th and 19th centuries. From this the Academy retains a selection of publications, such as an illustrated volume of the "Flora Batava".

The Spring 2018 issue of Dædalus, “Unfolding Futures: Indigenous Ways of Knowing for the Twenty-First Century,” offers Native and non-Native voices on subjects ranging from political movements, adaptive leadership, and representational politics to the production of scientific knowledge, the ethics of bioscience, and language preservation.

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.

On October 24, 2024, the Academy’s San Diego Committee hosted a program on “Health and Our Oceans,” which featured atmospheric chemist and Academy member Kimberly A. Prather. Professor Prather discussed newly identified critical connections between rising pollution levels in coastal oceans and rivers and their far-reaching impacts on air quality and human health. She also described a recent study on local air and water quality issues in southern San Diego. The program included introductory remarks from Susan Taylor, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology, Chemistry & Biochemistry at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and Margaret S. Leinen, Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Vice Chancellor for Marine Sciences, and Dean of the School of Marine Sciences at UC San Diego. An edited version of Professor Prather’s presentation follows.

There was a time before strong leaders, social inequality, and class systems. Coming of age in the 1960s, my motivation was to understand and hopefully help alter the world of unjust and unstable societies. This personal essay summarizes my career as an archaeologist studying the emergence of complex political systems.

It is my pleasure to present this edition of the Annual Report of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the first since I officially began my term as president in January 2025. I would like to begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to the hundreds of members whom I have had the opportunity to meet and learn from this year.

The Academy hosted a discussion about pressing issues facing the world in 2025. The event featured Kwame Anthony Appiah (New York University), Michael Froman (Council on Foreign Relations), and Adam Tooze (Columbia University) in conversation with Anne-Marie Slaughter (New America). Academy President Laurie L. Patton delivered the opening remarks. Transcript and video online.

On September 6, 2018, at Emory University, the American Academy hosted a Morton L. Mandel Public Lecture on “The Study of African American Women’s Writing: Pasts & Futures.” The program, which included a welcome from Dwight A. McBride, served as the 2069th Stated Meeting of the American Academy. Michelle M. Wright introduced the evening’s speakers – Frances Smith Foster, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, and Pellom McDaniels III – and moderated the discussion.

Robert Ballard tells the story of his passionate career in ocean exploration and discusses the educational initiatives he has created to engage a new generation of scientists.

Timothy J. Colton and George Breslauer gave a presentation on “Russia Beyond Putin,” the subject of the upcoming Spring 2017 issue of Dædalus.

Induction Weekend 2025 began with an Opening Celebration that featured the announcement of the new Legacy Recognition Honorees with a special message from John Legend, followed by a conversation between David M. Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group, and Kenny Leon, Tony Award–winning stage and television director and new member of the Academy. An edited version of their conversation follows.

William Labov is regarded as the founder of variationist sociolinguistics, a discipline dedicated to understanding and researching language in relation to social factors that include region, class, and gender. Dr. Labov has worked to promote literacy for speakers of nonstandard dialects and to develop reading and teaching materials for these populations.

In "The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?" Michael J. Sandel argues that the divide between winners and losers has poisoned our politics and pulled us apart. The problem, he contends, is not only that we have failed to live up to the meritocratic ideals we profess, but that a meritocratic society is a flawed aspiration. It produces hubris among the successful and humiliation among those left behind. In the first virtual Stated Meeting in the history of the Academy, Michael J. Sandel joined T. J. Jackson Lears and Anna Deavere Smith in a conversation about his new book and the destructive consequences of linking socioeconomic status with personal worth.

A transcript from an interdisciplinary panel discussion on the importance of creativity in science, with participants highlighting how creativity and imagination fuel scientific discovery and how science inspires artistic expression. The conversation followed the presentation of the Rumford Prize to Andrea Ghez by Laurie Patton.

The Rumford Prize, which recognizes contributions to the fields of heat and light, broadly interpreted, was first awarded in 1839 and is one of the oldest scientific prizes in the United States. Previous prize recipients include Thomas Edison in 1895, Edwin Land in 1945, and Enrico Fermi in 1953.

The American Academy awarded the 2021 Rumford Prize to astrophysicist Charles L. Bennett for his contributions to the field of cosmology. The virtual award ceremony included remarks by Academy President David Oxtoby, an introduction from theoretical physicist Marc Kamionkowski, a reading of the Rumford Prize citation by astronaut and scientist Kathryn Sullivan, and a presentation from Charles Bennett. An edited version of the speakers’ remarks follows.

An article by Martha Nussbaum

In 2015, the American Musicological Society gave the Noah Greenberg Award to musicologist Jessie Ann Owens and the vocal ensemble Blue Heron, directed by Scott Metcalfe, for their project to produce the world premiere recording of Cipriano de Rore’s landmark I madrigali a cinque voci (Venice, 1542). On May 3, 2018, Owens spoke at the Academy about Cipriano’s music; following her presentation, Blue Heron performed a selection of madrigals drawn from his 1542 publication.