On June 6, 2012, Internet pioneers Tom Leighton, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and David D. Clark discussed the future of the Web. The meeting, presented in collaboration with the Royal Society and the British Consulate-General, was the inaugural program in a lecture series on ‘GREAT Science,’ organized by the U.K. government’s Science and Innovation Network to profile international science excellence.

Maxine Hong Kingston is awarded the Academy’s Emerson-Thoreau medal, which was first given to Robert Frost in 1958 and has since been presented to other notable authors such as T.S. Eliot, Hannah Arendt, Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison, and Margaret Atwood.

National Commission seeks recommendations on role of humanities and social sciences in local communities in preparation for report to Congress

Select Prizes and Awards to Members

Ira Katznelson and Samuel Issacharoff discussed the state of security and freedom and the role of fear in a modern democracy.

Jack Fuller reflects on the speeches of Edward H. Levi, who "helped restore the belief that the Department of Justice was committed to the rule of law" and served as President of the American Academy from 1986-1989.

Those of us who teach undergraduates are familiar with the trend revealed in these data. Baccalaureate graduates typically have earned more course credits in the humanities (about 17% as defined here) than in STEM fields (about 13%). STEM majors earn fewer credits in the humanities than do students majoring in other areas; and students majoring in the humanities, business, social sciences, and education apparently earn no more than a required minimum of their credits in STEM courses.

Daedalus essay on "The Face of Battle Without the Rules of War" cited in Teen Vogue slideshow of photographs from the Indigenous Peoples March on Washington.

The paper discusses the implications for Russia and China of current U.S. military plans to develop missile-defense systems and to seek military control of outer space.

For centuries, humans have sought to enhance their natural appearance and abilities through medicine, surgery, exercise, and education. Today, performance enhancement is most often associated with drugs taken by athletes and college students to improve physical and mental performance.

The world may need to adopt new multinational arrangements to ensure the security and safe storage of nuclear materials that result from a global expansion of nuclear energy, according to the authors of a new collection from the American 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. 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.

In October 1964, China simultaneously announced the success of its first nuclear test and pledged to the international community that it would never be the first country to use nuclear weapons. For more than 40 years, this “no-first-use” doctrine has guided China’s nuclear policy, resulting in a nuclear arsenal much smaller than those of the world’s four other major nuclear powers.

Today the Academy’s Humanities Indicators launches its latest informational resource, the National Inventory of Humanities Organizations (NIHO).

Stephen Heintz, Cochair of the Academy's Commission on Democratic Citizenship, calls for greater philanthropic support for work that strengthens democracy in American democracy. He makes the case that a healthy, functional government advances every other investment.

New Issue of Journal Dædalus Explores the Global Nuclear Future

Responding to recent trends devaluing humanistic training, including a statement from a Mississippi state official, Beth Ann Fennelly argues for the importance of the humanities in higher education, citing a 2018 report issued by the Humanities Indicators.