On May 17, 2017, Jonathan Fanton introduced a discussion on visual perception, entitled “How Do We See?” Ken Nakayama moderated the discussion between Charles Gilbert and Dale Purves.

The discussion served as the 2054th Stated Meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Good evening.  I am Jonathan Fanton, President of the American Academy. It is my pleasure to welcome you and to call to order the 2054^th Stated Meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Our topic this evening is “How do we see?” As you can imagine, questions about how vision works have been ever-present throughout the life of the Academy. In fact, an issue of the Academy’s Memoirs from 1809 contains a communication from Peres Fobes, a Massachusetts clergyman elected to the Academy in 1780, entitled “A Curious Phenomenon of Vision.” His letter describes the case of a 46-year-old man named Pierce who had “a kind of ulcer collected in his head,” which confined him to his home with weak eyesight and extreme sensitivity to light.

One night the ulcer broke, and Mr. Pierce awoke free of pain, feeling well and composed. He arose and went to look out a window, and, as Reverend Fobes described,

“to his great surprise [Pierce] saw, at a place called Reed’s ware-house, near the ferry, at the distance of near two miles, a cart and yoke of oxen. He could plainly discern the color of the oxen, the rounds in the cart, the stones on the beach, and even the courses and joints in the shingles on the ware-house. This extraordinary degree of acute, telescopic vision continued for about one hour; after which his sight returned to its usual state.”

The letter goes on to vouch for Mr. Pierce’s character and judgment.

Continue reading “How Do We See?” A Discussion on Visual Perception →

On April 18, 2017, Jonathan Fanton introduced a discussion on the book “Our Compelling Interests: The Value of Diversity and Democracy and a Prosperous Society.” The panel, introduced by Nancy Cantor and moderated by Liz Cheng, featured the following speakers: Danielle Allen, Earl Lewis, Deval Patrick (via video), and Amy Schulman.

The program was organized by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Good evening.  It is my pleasure to welcome you to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for a program organized by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The panelists here tonight will discuss the book edited by Earl Lewis and Nancy Cantor, Our Compelling Interests: The Value of Diversity for Democracy and a Prosperous Society.

We are delighted that the Mellon Foundation selected the Academy as the New England venue for one of a series of conversations around the country on the issues raised in the book. The American Academy has been home to some notable projects over its history that addressed the issue of diversity in America, including ground-breaking scholarship in the 1970s on ethnicity, work on urban school desegregation, and comparative projects on ethnic pluralism and immigration in the United Kingdom, France, and China.

As Our Compelling Interests makes clear, America’s level of diversity is one of its most distinctive characteristics. Demographers predict that in 25 years the United States will have a majority non-white population. Diversity of all kinds—racial, socioeconomic, gender, religious, linguistic, regional, and sexual—has had a profound impact on American culture and institutions. Our Compelling Interests asks whether diversity is a goal worth pursuing, an opportunity to be leveraged, or a condition to be managed? Can we sustain a prosperous democratic society if there are particular groups that are excluded from the promises of equal political, social, and economic opportunity? How can our compelling interests as a nation be brought into alignment with the compelling interests of the many diverse groups of people who make up our population?

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On Tuesday, December 2, 2016, President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Jonathan F. Fanton addressed members of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and several dozen members of the Academy in Berlin, Germany.

Good afternoon and thank you for hosting us here today. The American Academy has 596 foreign honorary members from 45 countries, in addition to our approximately 4,000 members in the United States. We are actively trying to engage our foreign honorary members in the Academy’s work and are very happy to see you all here today.

We have begun to hold gatherings with our members around the world. For example, this fall alone we have convened meetings in Paris, London, and Israel.

As we reach out to members in other countries, Germany has been high on our list because of the many connections between scholars here and in the U.S.

We currently have 70 members (7 fellows and 63 foreign honorary members) in Germany, with 18 based in Berlin.  A total of 252 members affiliated with Germany have been elected since Johann Jacob Hemmer was elected in 1788. Over the years, other prominent members have included:

• Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859); elected 1822, FHM
• Jacob Ludwig Grimm, (1785-1863); elected 1857, FHM
• Max Planck, (1858-1947); elected 1914, FHM
• Albert Einstein, (1879-1955); elected 1924, FHM
• Werner Karl Heisenberg, (1901-1976); elected 1958, FHM

We added five new German members in the Class of 2016.

They are:

• Hans-Joachim Freund, (1951-); Director and Scientific Member, Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft; elected 2016, FHM
• Gerd Gigerenzer, (1947-); Professor; Director, Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung; elected 2016, FHM
• Joachim Küpper, (1952-); Professor of Romance Literatures and Comparative Literature, Freie Universität Berlin; elected 2016, FHM  
• Horst Bredekamp, (1947-); Professor of Art History, Humboldt University; elected 2016, FHM
• Christof Niehrs, (1962-); Executive and Scientific Director, Institute of Molecular Biology; elected 2016, FHM

Continue reading Remarks to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation →

On November 30, 2016, Jonathan Fanton introduced a discussion focused on the “Responsibility to Protect Cultural Heritage” at the British Academy in London. The discussion was co-hosted with the Getty Trust.

Good morning. I am Jonathan Fanton, President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and it is my pleasure to welcome you to our meeting to discuss the international community’s role in preserving at-risk cultural heritage around the world.  We are honored to co-host this meeting with the Getty Trust, which has been a leader in the conversation of cultural heritage around the world. Let me give some background on the American Academy and then turn the proceedings over to Getty President James Cuno, who will moderate our meeting.

The American Academy, founded in 1780, is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States.  When the Academy was created, the War for Independence had not ended and the American Constitution had not been drafted, yet the Academy’s founders, led by John Adams, John Hancock, and James Bowdoin, were already looking to the future, anticipating our young republic’s needs for new knowledge and practical ideas.

From its beginnings the Academy has brought together the nation’s and the world’s most distinguished citizens to address social and intellectual issues of common concern and to translate knowledge into action. Timely research and publications are central to the Academy’s mission to promote useful knowledge and advance the public good. As an independent research center, the Academy is known for multidisciplinary, nonpartisan research that provides evidence-based approaches for complex challenges in the areas of Science, Engineering, Technology, Humanities, Arts, Education, American Institutions, and Global Security.  Today’s meeting is a good example of such an interdisciplinary project bridging the worlds of art and history with global security and human rights.

Continue reading R2P Cultural Heritage Exploratory Fund Meeting →