The closing program of the Academy’s 2025 Induction weekend featured a presentation by new member David Dunning on the psychology of overconfidence and its influence on decision-making, followed by a conversation with Academy President Laurie L. Patton. An edited transcript of the presentation and conversation follows.

The bipartisan Academy commission that issued the Our Common Purpose report recommended using the commemoration of America’s 250th anniversary to develop shared narratives about our nation’s story. An article in the New York Times highlights a new tour at Monticello -- developed in collaboration with two OCP Champion organizations -- that invites reflections on today’s challenges through a historical lens.

There are many rights that Americans living in poverty can’t access simply because they can’t afford a lawyer. This includes rights in housing, veterans’ benefits, disability access and many other areas of our civil justice system. This is called the access to justice gap, and it’s one of the most urgent — and under-discussed — civil rights issues of our time.

The Academy's report on strengthening democracy for 21st century America can be used as a playbook for "how we might regain our footing as citizens to renew the world’s oldest democracy," writes Daniel Stid.

A protracted debate within the Academy over Darwin’s Origin of Species began with a paper on Japanese flora presented by Asa Gray in 1858, leading to an exchange between Louis Agassiz and William Barton Rogers...

In this interview with Danielle Allen, NPR's On Point focuses on the Academy's new bipartisan recommendations for reimagining American democracy for the 21st century: What are the signs democracy needs fixing? How participatory was the process? Who was consulted in the process? Where do we go from here?

Carolyn Lukensmeyer – an expert in deliberative democracy and a member of the Academy’s Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship – describes the historical development of hyper-partisanship in the U.S., the opportunities that innovative political engagement offers, and suggests ways of healing the divides in our country in order to chart a collective path forward.

The Winter 2021 issue of Dædalus “On the Novel,” guest-edited by Michael Wood, features fourteen essays, written by scholars with a variety of approaches and interests, that offer remarkable insights into the behavior of this versatile literary form.

Drawing largely on original research using federal data sets and the Gallup-Purdue Index survey of college alumni, the new report from the Humanities Indicators finds that college graduates with degrees from fields with below-average earnings are quite similar to graduates from other fields with respect to their perceived well-being.

Danielle Allen, co-chair of the Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, spoke with PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff about the Our Common Purpose report and why she feels hopeful about the future of American democracy.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution intended the House of Representatives to be “the People’s House.” For decades, the House grew as the nation grew. Then, in 1929, Congress capped the size of the House at 435 seats. A new Academy report assesses the impacts and alternatives with a proposal for enlarging the House now.

Historian Bernard Bailyn opened the celebration of the 220th annual meeting of the Academy with a commentary on the personal characteristics of John Adams as revealed in his diary and his autobiography.

The American Academy inducted its 236th class of members at a ceremony that included presentations by five new members: Terry A. Plank, Jay D Keasling, Andrea Louise Campbell, Theaster Gates, Jr., and Walter Isaacson.

On September 17, 2015, at the Silver Center of Arts and Science at New York University, Matthew S. Santirocco moderated a panel discussion featuring Kevin Guthrie, Daphne Koller, and Nicholas Lemann.

The importance of public-private partnership; the assault on science and scientists; the attacks on knowledge, ideas, education, and democracy; the history of the American West and the American military; and the power of stories to teach, build bridges, and bring about social change – the class speakers at the Induction Ceremony for members elected in 2020 and 2021 addressed major issues facing the world today, with calls to action and calls for change. The ceremony featured presentations from engineer Lisa T. Su; neurosurgeon, medical reporter, and writer Sanjay Gupta; scholar and writer on civil rights and critical race theory Kimberlé W. Crenshaw; historian Patricia Limerick; and labor union activist Mary Kay Henry. An edited version of their presentations follows.

On April 1, 2022, the Academy presented Henry Louis Gates, Jr. with the Don M. Randel Award for Humanistic Studies in recognition of his groundbreaking work as a scholar and public intellectual. The program, which was the Annual David M. Rubenstein Lecture, included remarks by Academy President David Oxtoby, the presentation of the award by Chair of the Academy’s Board Nancy C. Andrews, and a conversation between Gates and David M. Rubenstein. An edited version of the presentations and conversation follows.

Few need to be told that the academic humanities have been beset by challenges over the past fifteen years, but the evidence tends to be scattered. To provide a clearer picture of the state of the field, the Academy’s Humanities Indicators project recently released the results from a new national survey of humanities departments in fourteen humanities and humanities-adjacent disciplines, the fourth such survey since 2008. Drawing on responses from more than two thousand department chairs, the report demonstrates both the challenges the field experiences today and the resilience of many departments in the face of those difficulties.

Eric Liu spoke with NPR's A. Martinez about solutions to America’s isolation problem.

This guest essay in The Hill sets forth that journalism should be treated like critical infrastructure, with the understanding that it is essential to a strong and healthy democracy. Rooted in Academy work, the oped explores how and why stabilizing media is part of strengthening democracy in America.