The Summer 2019 issue of Daedalus, “Inequality as a Multidimensional Process,” guest edited by Michèle Lamont and Paul Pierson, draws on a wide range of expertise to better understand and examine how economic conditions are linked to other social, psychological, political, and cultural processes that can either counteract or reinforce durable inequalities.

The Academy hosted a multi-faceted conversation about the interconnectedness of polarization, institutions, and the public’s trust in science. The panelists shared views from academic, journalistic, and institutional perspectives about how the public trust has been eroded and how the trust can be restored.

The Academy’s record of distinction in Science, Engineering, and Technology dates to its founding mission “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Rather than generate new scientific research, the role of the Academy has been uniquely interdisciplinary, bridging the social sciences and arts with the physical sciences to support a national understanding, belief, and trust in science and discovery. Perhaps no better example of this can be found than in the mid-1800s when the Academy hosted hotly contested debates about a new scientific theory: the theory of evolution.

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

Select Prizes and Awards to Members

List of Staff at the American Academy

Academy member Judith Butler discusses the Humanities Indicators’ survey on the humanities in American life, concluding that the future of the humanities may well depend on realizing that the best case for art, poetry, literature, and performance is already being made by our most publicly engaged fields.

On behalf of the Development and Communications Committee, I would like to extend my deep gratitude to all the Fellows, friends, and foundations who supported the Academy this year.

Projects in Science, Engineering, and Technology seek to strengthen the capacity of science and engineering to improve the human condition. This goal has never been more important. Global challenges increasingly require collaboration across disciplinary, professional, and national boundaries, while advances in information processing and transmission raise issues for both the management of scientific and technical information and for the ability of individuals and institutions to assimilate and act on new discoveries.

It is with deep sadness that the Academy notes the passing of business leader, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and dedicated public servant Morton L. Mandel on October 16, 2019, at the age of 98.

Richard Saller, Elaine Treharne, Franco Moretti, Joshua Cohen, and Michael A. Keller discussed the humanities in the context of rapidly developing new technologies.

The Academy's Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences includes a group of prominent business, government, and academic leaders, artists, and scholars.

Dædalus is the journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and it's published by MIT Press. The Academy made the journal open access in 2021 as part of a commitment to making ideas and information freely available. During the first year of open access, Dædalus experienced an increase in online readership, downloaded articles, and citations.

"Access to Justice," the Fall 2019 issue of Daedalus, is only the first of several efforts sponsored by the Academy to gather information about the national need for improved legal access, study innovations piloted around the country to fill this need, and advance a set of clear, national recommendations for closing the justice gap.

The Global Security and International Affairs program area draws on the expertise of a broad range of policymakers, practitioners, and scholars to foster knowledge and promote innovative and evidence-based policies to address crucial issues affecting the international 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 at all levels of society.

The Academy holds virtual events as well as in-person events around the country and the world that bring members, representatives of the Affiliates, and others together to explore topics of national and global concern.

The best way we can transcend ideology is to teach our students, regardless of their majors, to think like scientists.

The White House’s proposed budget cuts to language and exchange programs will make America less able to communicate with and understand our allies and potential adversaries abroad, argues Karl Eikenberry, citing Academy report.

The 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding is approaching, and the opportunities are huge for museums to reframe history and engage their communities more deeply.

A new study from the American Academy's Humanities Indicators project reveals trends among U.S. residents, and the impact of respondents’ political leanings, socioeconomic status, gender, and race.