We honor outstanding scholarly excellence and intellectual courage across the sciences, arts, and learned professions.
Joined November 2023
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The Chronicle of Higher Education's news story about our new study on the crisis in the humanities includes an interactive data tool you can use to explore the results. Link below.
Humanities dissertations have declined by half over the last decade, compared to 5% in social science. Here's the news story and interactive data tool in CHE:
chronicle.com/article/humani…
Check out the study itself here:
academysciencesletters.org/h…
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Today we publish a study showing the number of humanities dissertations has fallen by half in a decade, compared to 5% in social science. The usual explanations (funding, STEM) don't track the decline. Our study looks at other explanations. Link & thread below!
Interest in "truth" and the making of truth claims did not decline over this period. The shift in attitude toward the humanities' traditional subjects, not "relativism" as such, is the major change in the humanities over the past 65 years.
We have published two versions of the study. The main version (linked above) has everything the average reader will want. Those who want full technical information on how the analysis was performed will want the longer version, linked here:
academysciencesletters.org/h…
Academy member Karl Albert van Bibber (Berkeley) discusses why we want to discover things even if we don’t know how we’d use them, and the courage it takes investigate theories that aren’t backed by funding and jobs.
youtube.com/watch?v=hlD2Kh2b…
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Academy member Philip Tetlock (Penn) discusses why viewpoint diversity contributes to excellence, the implicit deal between society and the university has become unstable, and public opinion about the university is more complex than we might think.
youtube.com/watch?v=zGu0KIQo…
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Academy member Gene Andrew Jarrett (Princeton) discusses how African-American literature shapes our language and worldview, why the university has to tell its story, and the delightful discovery that a historical figure is better known than he seems.
youtube.com/watch?v=shNFeyDV…
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Academy member Dale Allison (Princeton Theological Seminary) discusses why reductive methodologies can't counteract narrow belief systems, who has courage in the modern academy, and the danger of surrendering our minds to a "technological mindset."
youtube.com/watch?v=tHhjPETc…
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Academy member Bryan Garsten (Yale) discusses how the university expresses something important about our society, and why the social dynamic within a university can change much faster than we might think.
youtube.com/watch?v=uiUBFOQz…
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Academy member E. Wesley Ely (Vanderbilt) discusses why the practice of medicine brings together science and the humanities, how innovative approaches are providing better care for the whole person, and why being proven wrong is a reason to celebrate.
youtube.com/watch?v=Xvx5yAyt…
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Academy member Michael Birrer (UAMS) discusses how government funding distorts scientific research, why this is the best time in living memory for advances in cancer treatment, and why democracy depends on the mission of the university.
youtube.com/watch?v=NiNNvYoE…
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Academy member Randy Evan Barnett (Georgetown) discusses the danger of echo chambers, the obstacles to cultivating real viewpoint diversity, and why society needs the university's truth-seeking mission.
youtube.com/watch?v=g8_0BkFW…
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Mary Ann Glendon (Harvard) interviews Barry Prize winner Joseph Weiler (NYU) about why real courage means risking the disapproval of your own “reference group,” and why scholars should take journalistic and popular discourse seriously.
youtube.com/watch?v=sLE7gGZ2…
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Greg Forster (AASL) interviews Barry Prize winner David Relman (Stanford) about how microbes are both like and unlike people, and how a pedagogy of lifelong learning and citizenship holds the mission of the university together.
youtube.com/watch?v=5l9UJlyI…
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Greg Forster (AASL) interviews Barry Prize winner Leon Kass (Chicago) about how classic texts are both the source of and the greatest critics of our wisdom traditions, and what has surprised him about growing old and growing young as an educator.
youtube.com/watch?v=x-LGiMTc…
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Greg Forster (AASL) interviews Barry Prize winner Danielle Allen (Harvard) about how the university can cultivate truth-seeking qualities, why theory needs practice as much as practice needs theory, and the hunger for deeper inquiry in today’s students.
youtube.com/watch?v=jJpvwNZ9…
"Do We Still Hold These Truths? America at 250"
The Academy hosted Robert George (moderator), Akhil Reed Amar, Julia Mahoney and Harvey Mansfield at DC's historic Anderson House to discuss the continuing significance of the Declaration of Independence.
youtu.be/f2DP-qY6tPs