Guest edited by Denis Donoghue, essays in the volume, “On the American Narrative,” explore many of the threads that create the country’s “master story,” including American exceptionalism and the role of the Constitution as the nation’s “operating manual.” These topics, considered by fourteen prominent scholars and writers, are emerging as themes of the 2012 presidential election campaign.

White paper explores legal frameworks for regulation of nuclear, biological, and cyber technologies

Mark S. Schlissel, Mary Sue Coleman, Patrick Doyle, M. Roy Wilson, and Lou Anna K. Simon participated in a discussion at the University of Michigan about public research universities and their role in serving the public interest in Michigan.

By Jessica Taylor, Louis W. Cabot Fellow in Humanities Policy at the Academy, and Robert B. Townsend, Director of Humanities, Arts, and Culture Programs at the Academy and Codirector of the Humanities Indicators

The risk of nuclear terrorism has guided and informed the work of the Academy’s Global Nuclear Future Initiative since its inception in 2008.

The Academy’s founders understood well the dangers of concentrated power and authoritarian rule. They recognized that a representative government needs checks and balances, the separation of powers, individual rights, and an independent judiciary–“a government of laws, not of men,” in the words of John Adams, one of the Academy’s founders. They also grasped the essential role of free inquiry in sustaining democracy, as well as the importance of liberty as a precondition for the pursuit of knowledge. That vision is captured in the Academy’s seal and motto, Sub Libertate Florent: the arts and sciences “flourish under freedom.”

Academy 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 for the nation or for the world than it is today. Global challenges increasingly require collaboration across disciplinary, professional, and national boundaries. Likewise, rapid advances in information processing and transmission raise new issues for the management of scientific knowledge and for action on new discoveries.

Inspired by the Academy report on "America's Languages," Congressmen David Price (D-NC) and Don Young (R-AK) announced the creation of the Congressional Caucus on American Languages, a bipartisan effort to support and enhance foreign language competency and international education in the U.S.

“Democracy is under siege.” So begins the Summer 2017 issue of Dædalus on “The Prospects & Limits of Deliberative Democracy.”

"Science & the Legal System," the Fall 2018 issue of Dædalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, features thirteen essays on topics including the state of the forensic sciences, expert testimony in court, the role of science in abortion law, neuroscience and law, and reforms to the U.S. adversarial system.

Announcing the six universities awarded $250,000 as part of the inaugural Modernizing Academic Appointment & Advancement (MA3) Challenge. This new cohort of university awardees will implement bold institutional reforms to faculty hiring, evaluation, promotion, and tenure systems. 

Roger Ferguson, cochair of the Academy’s Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education, addresses how recent crises have exacerbated enduring challenges in higher education and how we collectively address those headwinds will shape outcomes for generations to come.

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.

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.

The Spring 2015 issue of Dædalus on “Successful Aging of Societies” explores the opportunities and challenges facing the United States as it undergoes an unprecedented demographic transformation.

How can nuclear technology be made safer? How should nuclear installations be protected from potential attacks by terrorist groups and from sabotage carried out by insiders? What policies should aspiring nuclear countries enact to fulfill their global commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)? These questions and others were discussed at a recent Academy symposium held in Hiroshima, Japan, on June 26–28, 2013.

Limiting the effects of climate change will require a substantial transformation of the energy infrastructure. The Winter 2013 issue of Dædalus explores an equally important but less appreciated requirement for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions: the societal transition that must accompany these technological changes.

Free speech makes no distinction about quality; academic freedom does. Are all opinions equally valid in a university classroom? Joan Wallach Scott speaks about academic freedom after accepting the Talcott Parsons Prize.

Select Prizes and Awards to Members