american academy of arts & sciences

winter 2014 www.amacad.org vol. lxvii, no. 2 american academy of arts & sciences bulletin winter 2014 Bulletin

Academy Inducts 233rd Class of Members Class Speakers: Alison Gopnik, Paula Fredriksen, Xiaowei Zhuang, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, and Phyllis M. Wise

On the Arts and Sciences Ken Burns and Ernest J. Moniz

ALSO: Restoring Justice: The Legacy of Edward H. Levi Middle East Regional Security Challenges: The View from Turkey A View of the Visiting Scholars A View from a Visiting Scholar Point of View: Talks on Education Upcoming Events

FEBRUARY MARCH 12th 12th House of the Academy, Cambridge House of the Academy, Cambridge SILA: Staged Reading and Panel Discussion A program about “At Berkeley,” a new about the Future of our Planet documentary by Frederick Wiseman Featuring: Featuring: Robert Jaffe (Massachusetts Institute Robert J. Birgeneau (University of of Technology) California, Berkeley) Chantal Bilodeau (The Arctic Cycle) George W. Breslauer (University of California, Berkeley) Naomi Oreskes (Harvard University) Mark S. Schlissel (Brown University; Staged Reading by University of Michigan) Catalyst Collaborative@MIT Frederick Wiseman (Filmmaker) 15th Fairmont Chicago, Millennium Park Hotel, APRIL Chicago, Illinois 17th Reception for Fellows and Guests with remarks by Alan Alda House of the Academy, Cambridge Growing Pains in a Rising China Featuring: Elizabeth Perry (Harvard University) Ching Kwan Lee (University of California, Los Angeles) Benjamin L. Liebman (Columbia Law School) Barry Naughton (University of California, San Diego)

For updates and additions to the calendar, visit www.amacad.org.

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his year’s Annual Fund Campaign will conclude on March 31. To make your gift Tonline, please go to www.amacad.org, click on Contribute, then click on the DONATE button. You will receive an immediate electronic acknowledgment that your gift has been received. Generous Annual Fund contributions from Members help to support all of the Acad- emy’s activities, including projects and publications, the website, outreach, meetings, and other activities in Cambridge and around the country. If you have already made your gift to the Annual Fund, thank you. If not, we urge you to participate by March 31. For assistance in making a gift, please contact the Development Office: 617-576-5057; [email protected]. Contents

Presentations

2 2013 Induction Ceremony Class Speakers

11 On the Arts and Sciences: Presentations by Ken Burns and Ernest J. Moniz

22 Restoring Justice: The Legacy of Edward H. Levi

31 Middle East Regional Security Challenges: The View from Turkey

Projects and Activities

36 Projects in Science and Technology Policy; Security and Energy; and Humanities, Education, and Social Policy

55 A View of the Visiting Scholars

58 A View from a Visiting Scholar

60 Point of View: Talks on Education

Updates on Members

62 Noteworthy

Clockwise from top left: Xiaowei Zhuang, Phyllis M. Wise, Ernest J. Moniz, Jack Fuller, Patricia Meyer Spacks, Annette Gordon-Reed, David F. Levi, and Ken Burns presentations

2013 Induction Ceremony Class Speakers

n October 12, 2013, the American Academy inducted its 233rd class of Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members at a ceremony held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The ceremony featured historical readings by Sally Field (actor, O producer, director, and screenwriter) and Ken Burns (documentary filmmaker). It also included presentations by five new members:Xiaowei Zhuang (Harvard University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute), Marc Tessier-Lavigne (Rockefeller University), Alison Gopnik (University of California, Berkeley), Paula Fredriksen (Boston University and Hebrew University, Jerusalem), and Phyllis M. Wise (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign); their remarks appear below. The ceremony concluded with a memorable performance by Herbie Hancock (pianist and composer).

One of the major attributes that dis- The second example, one that is near tinguishes human beings from animals and dear to my heart, is optical microscopy. is that humans use tools in fascinating Although often debated, the invention of the ways. Scientists are among the most cre- optical microscope is generally attributed to ative tool inventors and users, develop- Galileo, one of the founding fathers of phys- ing marvelous technologies to explore ics. Legend has it that Galileo took inspira- the wonders of nature. For many of these tion from the telescope that he used to look at technologies, their most profound appli- the stars in the sky and invented a microscope cations were not foreseen at the time of with which he could study small objects on their creation. As a physicist who ven- Earth. It was Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, tured into biology, I would like to give generally known as the father of microbi- two examples of physical tools that have ology, who popularized the use of optical transformed life sciences and medicine in microscopes in biology. Using handcrafted unanticipated ways. lenses and microscopes, van Leeuwenhoek Nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr) is discovered bacteria, sperm, and, along with one such example. nmr was originally dis- Robert Hooke, the cell. Optical microscopy covered as an interesting physical phenom- has since become one of the most widely enon of nuclei in a magnetic field. Later, used methods of investigating the micro- Xiaowei Zhuang through its ability to precisely determine scopic world of living things. Using modern Xiaowei Zhuang is Professor of Chemistry and the structures of molecules–both chemical microscopes today, we can observe signals Chemical Biology and Professor of Physics at compounds and large biomolecules–nmr from objects as small as a single molecule. Harvard University and a Howard Hughes spectroscopy has transformed chemistry Recently, the century-old resolution limit and structural biology. More recently, - of optical microscopy has been overcome Medical Institute Investigator. She was elected a nmr based imaging, more commonly known as through inventions in physics and chemis- Fellow of the American Academy in 2013. mri, has become a powerful method used try. Thanks to these advances, we can now by doctors to diagnose pathological tissues use optical microscopes to see with nano- t is my great pleasure and honor to speak such as brain tumors. But when Isidor I. meter-scale resolution how tiny molecules I on behalf of Class I, the mathematical Rabi, Felix Bloch, and Edward M. Purcell are arranged in cells, which is helping us and physical sciences. I would like to ded- first detectednmr signals in the 1930s and understand how these molecules function icate my speech to these scientists, driven 1940s, they probably did not anticipate the together to give life to a cell. As visionary by curiosity, armed with mathematical and enormous influence their discovery would as Galileo was, he probably could not have physical principles, inventing tools that have have on life sciences. And they surely did foreseen the enormous contributions optical transformed our knowledge and changed not predict how many patients’ lives would microscopy would make toward our under- our lives, often in unexpected ways. today be saved by mri. standing of the living world.

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These are but two examples of the vast ing things. I hope that research institutes number of technologies that were originally and funding agencies do not judge scientific invented for studying physical matters but research based solely on impact factors for ended up changing the way we investigate journals in which the work is published, for living systems. Still, many mysteries of life example. I hope that Congress does not base remain too difficult to solve today, due to its funding decisions exclusively on whether the lack of proper tools. One prominent or not the research will directly lead to a example is how the billions of neurons in cure for cancer or other diseases. I may be our brain work together to give us cogni- too greedy here; we first have to hope that tive power–how we think, in other words. Congress will reopen our government. The White House recently recognized this When I was at the White House listen- question as one of the twenty-first century’s ing to the president’s announcement of the great challenges, and in response, President brain Initiative as a bold research effort Obama announced the brain Initiative– to revolutionize our understanding of the Brain Research through Advancing Innova- human mind and uncover new ways to tive Neurotechnologies–earlier this year. treat brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Clearly, more tools are needed. I remembered hoping that “understanding As we ponder upon what new tools to the human mind alone” could be sufficient invent and what new discoveries to make, motivation for the initiative. Important as let me reiterate that many of the technol- it is to cure devastating diseases like Alz-

Many of the technologies and scientific discoveries we rely on today came about due to the curiosity of scientists, their innate craving for understanding how nature works. Such curiosity-driven research has advanced science and technology and benefited human well-being in profound ways. ogies and scientific discoveries we rely heimer’s, our curiosity to understand the on today were not originally intended for human mind may ultimately lead to even their current applications. Rather, they greater breakthroughs, the effects of which came about due to the curiosity of scien- we cannot even begin to fully contemplate. tists, their innate craving for understanding Let me end with a quote by Antonie van how nature works. Such curiosity-driven Leeuwenhoek: “My work, which I have done research has advanced science and technol- for a long time, was not pursued in order to ogy and benefited human well-being in pro- gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from found ways. It is critical for us to remember a craving after knowledge.” Scientists are a this, especially now, as funding gets tighter curious bunch, whose cravings for knowl- and trendy science becomes both more edge have long served science and society fundable and publishable. I hope that we well. Let’s hope it will remain that way. still do scientific research because of our curiosity and our pure love of understand- © 2014 by Xiaowei Zhuang

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sand dollars. This capability, unimaginable covery in biomedicine. Yet instead of redou- twenty years ago, is enabling us to decipher bling our efforts, we are sliding back. the genetic basis of normal human varia- On the government side, funding for bio- tion and of diseases, both rare and com- medical research has been flat for a decade mon. We also can now grow artificial stem and has lost 20 percent of its purchasing cells, providing unprecedented windows power due to inflation. Scientists spend more into human biology. In my own field, this time raising money than doing research, and technology provides the first noninvasive younger scientists are increasingly discour- route to generating human nerve cells from aged from entering research careers. If both

We must continue to work to reverse the decline in public investment in basic research. History has shown that truly transformative knowledge comes from curiosity-driven research.

Marc Tessier-Lavigne patients with neurodegenerative diseases trends continue, we are in danger of wreck- Marc Tessier-Lavigne is President and Carson like Alzheimer’s: these nerve cells can be ing our scientific enterprise, a situation made Family Professor at Rockefeller University. He studied in the test tube to understand why worse by the current government shutdown. was elected a Fellow of the American Academy these diseased cells die prematurely. Power- Meanwhile, the private sector’s drug ful tools like these, and the growing body of discovery efforts are not making adequate in 2013. knowledge they enable, have the potential progress. Despite important successes, the to lead to effective medications for poorly number of drugs approved annually by am deeply honored to accept induction treated diseases. regulators has remained flat for decades, I into the American Academy of Arts and And these opportunities are coming none yet the cost to make a drug has doubled Sciences and to represent my fellow hon- too soon, because the health challenges fac- every five years, climbing to over $2 bil- orees in the biological sciences. The most ing us are immense. It is true that we have lion, an astonishing amount. High costs pressing issues I can discuss today are the seen great improvements in health during result partly from ever-increasing regula- wonderful and timely opportunities to our lifetimes–mortality from heart disease tory requirements, but the root problem advance human health that lie before us, the and stroke has been cut in half in the past is in research and development. Compa- challenges that simultaneously threaten our forty years, hiv infection is no longer lethal nies are now adept at making drugs that ability to benefit from them, and the steps but is manageable–yet despite these suc- modify biological targets, but have a poor I believe must be taken to overcome those cesses, the growing prevalence of illnesses record of identifying which targets are best obstacles to realize the full potential of sci- such as antibiotic-resistant infection, dia- to reduce disease and which patients will ence to improve the human condition. betes, and neurodegeneration threatens to benefit most from those drugs. The upshot Let me start by celebrating the fact that we overwhelm us. As the population ages, the is that only one in twenty-four expensive live in a golden age of biomedical research. number of people afflicted with Alzheimer’s drug start-up projects lead to a marketed The past several decades ushered in a glo- disease in the United States is projected to drug–a huge and costly attrition. And rious revolution in the life sciences that triple by 2050, with costs reaching $1 tril- many ailments–for instance, most psychi- has created unprecedented opportunities lion a year. Without effective therapies, the atric diseases–still cannot be tackled ade- to make rapid progress in understanding, human suffering and economic toll will be quately because we do not yet know their treating, and preventing disease. To give just devastating. underlying causes. two examples: today, we can sequence an Now is clearly the time to take maximum We therefore face a double crisis in gen- entire human genome for only a few thou- advantage of the huge opportunities for dis- erating and in applying knowledge. I believe

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we can nonetheless succeed, provided we understand and encourage behavior that deal with key funding and organizational supports good health; and from the arts and challenges. In this context, I offer a few pre- humanities, to nourish patients’ souls. scriptions for progress, some of which echo Finally, we must free up sufficient points made earlier today. resources so brilliant young scientists can First, we must continue to work to reverse launch their careers, even if this constrains the decline in public investment in basic senior scientists like those of us here today. research. From my years of experience in If we fail to do this, the younger generation the private sector, I can say that industry will continue to drift toward other profes- builds its applications on the fundamental sions, to the detriment of all. discoveries made in academia. You cannot If we can summon the discipline to tackle apply what you do not know, and history has these challenges, I believe the future will be shown that truly transformative knowledge bright; and so it behooves all here today, comes from curiosity-driven research. individuals of great talent, accomplish- Second, we must simultaneously encour- ment, and influence, to continue to exercise age and facilitate public/private inter- leadership–to make that bright future ours. actions. For instance, for new therapies, insights from academia are already helping © 2014 by Marc Tessier-Lavigne industry do a dramatically better job of tar- get selection and patient selection, keys to reducing attrition and containing costs. At the same time, while academia must engage with industry, it should not be asked to do industry’s job. There is a trend in the highest reaches of government toward favor- ing applied, rather than basic, research, since it helps secure public support. But if resources are constrained–as they are–and if some- thing has to give, then it should be the public investment in applied, not basic, research. The reason is simple: there are alternate fund- ing sources for applied research–industry, disease foundations, philanthropists–but there is only one significant source for basic research; namely, government. Industry cannot and will not fund it. We must make the perhaps unpopular case that the greatest gains will come if the public sector supports basic research, and industry supports applied research, with both working hand-in-glove to translate research results. We must also draw on all disciplines, not only biomedicine. We must draw from the physical sciences, for powerful imag- ing technologies, as Professor Zhuang has explained; from the social sciences, to

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 5 presentations

And like the rest of us social scientists, But the downside to that trait is that until for babies and young children, the most you have actually done all of that learning, fascinating, the most important, the most you are going to be helpless. You don’t want profound problem, the one they work on to wonder, while the mastodon is charging the hardest, is trying to figure out what is at you, “How shall I deal with this? A sling- going on in the minds of the other people shot, maybe, or possibly a spear?” You want around them. In fact, from an evolution- to have all of that learning in place before ary perspective, babies and young children you actually face the real challenges of being are designed for learning. One of the great an adult human being. puzzles of human evolution is why it is that And that is what we have evolved to do. we have children at all. Most people in the There is a kind of evolutionary division of audience have figured out at least the super- labor between children, who have noth- ficial, proximal answer to that question; ing to do but learn and whom we protect but, of course, there is a deeper evolutionary and invest in, and we adults, who take the explanation. After all, babies are, not to put things that we have learned as children and too fine a point on it, useless. In fact, they put them to use to fulfill our adult goals. In are arguably worse than useless because we fact, when computer scientists are trying to have to spend so much time and energy tak- create machines that can learn, they use a Alison Gopnik Alison Gopnik is Professor of Psychology and It turns out that if you want a system to learn, and affiliate Professor of Philosophy at the Univer- sity of California, Berkeley. She was elected a especially if you want a system to be able to learn Fellow of the American Academy in 2013. things that are novel and unexpected, the very best strategy is to first give that system free reign to am delighted to be here, speaking to the I Academy on behalf of social scientists. I explore, to look around, to play, and only then am a social scientist myself, but I also study the very best social scientists in the world, narrow it down to solve particular problems. namely, babies and young children. That is not a joke or a metaphor; our scientific ing care of them. And for human beings, our similar strategy. It turns out that if you want work over the past few years has shown that babies are useless for much longer than the a system to learn, and especially if you want babies and very young children learn so young of any other species. We have a much a system to be able to learn things that are much about the world quickly because they longer period of childhood, of protected novel and unexpected, the very best strat- implicitly use the techniques of science. immaturity, than any other species. And egy is to first give that system free reign to They analyze statistics, perform experi- that extended period of development seems explore, to look around, to play, and only ments, and then they use that data to con- to have been linked in the course of human then narrow it down to solve particular struct theories and make causal inferences. evolution with our great cognitive abilities. problems. They figure out intuitive theories about the Why would that be? The answer seems Evolution seems to have used this strat- world around them, and revise them on the to be that childhood gives us a protected egy in its invention of humans, but then we basis of the new data that they have. And period in which all we have to do is explore humans discovered it for ourselves in the not only do they do this deep and profound and learn. We human beings have a won- seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when science, but they do it spontaneously, as part derful evolutionary strategy: we can rely on we actually invented science (and also when of their everyday play, without even incen- learning. You can plunk us in any new, var- the Academy was being founded). What we tives like becoming members of the Amer- ied, unpredictable environment and we can discovered was that by giving adults, who ican Academy. learn how to cope with that environment. are not as swift as two- and three-year-olds,

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a protected place in which they could exer- solutions to our applied problems. What I cise their curiosity, explore, and play, we would argue is that we should take a page could make discoveries that would eventu- from evolution: if we, in the future, want to ally provide benefits to everybody, just as thrive in a complicated, unpredictable, con- the discoveries that we make through sheer stantly shifting world, we should stop try- curiosity and play as children helped the ing to make our child scientists be more like entire species thrive in evolutionary history. grownups, and instead continue to let our From this perspective, it is not that chil- grown-up scientists be more like children. dren are little scientists; it is more that sci- entists are big children. Yet recently, this © 2014 by Alison Gopnik powerful strategy of providing a period of protected, playful, exploratory learning has been under pressure on both fronts. Rather than providing more investment for child- hood, we are actually disinvesting in chil- dren. Very young children are more likely to live in poverty than any other group: 20 percent of American children are growing up in poverty, and that number is actually increasing. And when we do invest in early childhood education, children and teach- ers–rather than being able to exercise this exploratory, playful learning–are caught between the pressure of parents, who want their children to go to Harvard, and policy- makers, who want to show that their invest- ments have not been wasted, usually evi- denced through standardized test scores. And those same policy-makers are cutting the research budgets of both basic science, which is fuelled by curiosity and a spirit of play, and basic social science, which uses that curiosity and spirit of play to figure out how we ourselves work as human beings. Alongside the defunding of these curiosity- driven pursuits, there is an increasing pres- sure on the scientific disciplines to produce immediate and applicable results. The irony is that the biological and psychological sci- ences that we have used to start to under- stand young children show how misguided and counterproductive this approach actu- ally is. It is not simply that we would like to be able to do basic research; our science shows that basic research is the way to get to the most interesting and important

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 7 presentations

was the disciplined study of the universe. munication skills,” something that many Both stood on a continuum of meaning that employers look for. That is nice, too. These in a sense defined Western culture. apologetic efforts interpret and measure the That was then. This is now. Despite Des- humanities’ practical utility: majoring in cartes’s best efforts, this humanist foun- English or in comp lit, they urge reassuringly, dation has eroded. How? We could list the does not necessarily disqualify you from hav- names of those thinkers whose work marks ing a job. I am reminded of the New Yorker the stages on our road to post-modern- cartoon wherein a Mafioso addresses his ele- ism–Marx, Darwin, Einstein; Freud, Witt- mentary-school-age son and asks, “And how genstein, Heidegger–but such a response do you expect to be a made man without a would itself be “humanist,” an attempt to good liberal arts education?” identify causes through the generation of Money complicates this picture in simple an intellectual history. ways. Sciences bring huge grants to institu- Let me pull the camera further back. tions; the humanities do not. The price of Looking at where we are in 2013, what a college or of a university education has defines the cultural gap between the Renais- skyrocketed. What is the value of a degree sance and us, here, now? The answer lies that costs over $200,000 and prepares you in a huge mosaic of issues, changes, and for no job? How, practically, can a philoso- Paula Fredriksen factors. The one most evident to me is the phy degree help you to pay back your educa- Paula Fredriksen is the Aurelio Professor of commercial development of technology. tion loans? Surely, only the independently Scripture Emerita at Boston University and Dis- This child of the scientific revolution has wealthy can be indifferent to this problem. tinguished Visiting Professor of Comparative grown much more powerful, socially, than The rest can only rejoice if their seven- its parent. (Creationists use email, too.) teen-year-old opts for Wharton over St. Religion at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Technology indexes man’s control over the John’s. Where does this leave the humanities? She was elected a Fellow of the American Acad- universe. And this control–most signifi- I was born in 1951. When I was a child, one emy in 2013. cantly, in the production of energy–has of the earliest and most significant, most been rewarded by huge influxes of money imaginatively liberating leaps forward was rt, music, drama; language, literature, and power. It has profoundly affected the transition from picture books to chap- A and poetry; history, philosophy, reli- human society for good and for ill; pro- ter books. A page of unbroken prose allowed gion–these are some of the premier sub- foundly affected, mostly for ill, the planet me as a reader to conjure persons and places jects constituting that area of our culture itself. Technology’s rewards–power and however I wanted. A vestige of this value that we designate “the humanities,” the wealth–are immediate and quantifiable. lingers in our hesitation to see a film made disciplined study of the human experience. More than anything else, it is these devel- of a favorite book: we have already pictured As a family of academic disciplines, the opments in the commercial deployment of the characters in a certain way and don’t humanities are a product particularly of technology that have displaced humanism. want the disruption of seeing them embod- the European Renaissance. Those were the And if humanism has been displaced, where ied by somebody different. (I have to add good old days, when “man was the measure does this leave the humanities? that Colin Firth helped me get over this fear of all things.” The products of humanistic What are the humanities good for? What with his Mr. Darcy.) scholarship presupposed a certain con- metric measures their worth? We were told a I started teaching in university in 1977. struction of intellect, or of mind, or of self, few weeks ago that people who read Chekhov By the early 1990s, I finally acceded to my as an autonomous “knower.” This idea, in score higher on psychology exams measuring students’ requests that I assign a textbook. turn, reflected commitments to or presup- “empathy” than people who do not. That’s The sources and articles that filled my sylla- positions about the individual as a moral nice. People who read good literature tend bus were too various for them; they wanted agent freely exercising his or her will. And to write better than people who do not. This a unified view of the material. By the mid- in these good old days, no chasm yawned saying seems to commend literature, but 2000s, I could no longer tolerate doing my between the humanities and science, which it is really a commendation of good “com- own homework assignments because I could

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not stand all the visual noise on the textbook a glorious six-hundred-year run, but what The second experience centered around page. Sidebars, maps, and graphs; photos, comes next, I do not know. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, performed timelines, and study questions: the spread So I cannot say what institutional shapes by the Boston Philharmonic at Symphony was so congested, so broken by boxes imi- the humanities will take in the future; and Hall. Benjamin Zander was conductor, and tating windows on a computer screen, that I I do not know what changing standards of he spoke about an interesting observation could scarcely pick out the exiguous thread of literacy will do to humanistic learning. I do that he had made while reviewing Beetho- prose supposedly binding them all together. know that the humanities help you to grow ven’s notations about tempo for the Ninth What had happened? The short answer, I your soul. They articulate and enrich your Symphony. Each of the first three move- think, is: computers. (We can now include experience of living. They connect us with ments, if performed at the tempo that Bee- in this class tablets and smartphones.) each other, across cultures, across centu- thoven indicated, lasted exactly thirteen Reading, too, is a technē, a skill that enables ries, across generations. This is a wonderful minutes, and the choral movement, the glo- control over texts. What I have noticed as an enrichment. rious fourth movement, lasted twenty-one educator is that the physical and cognitive act of I would like to close by briefly telling a minutes, which meant that the entire sym- reading has become progressively harder for the story of two experiences that I had in the phony was brought home in exactly sixty generations of students who have passed through past couple of weeks. The first is about me minutes. But the context of this perfor- my classroom. Images, sound bites, the stac- and Homer, the second is about me, Beetho- mance of the Ninth Symphony was also spe- cato communications of social media: this ven, and the city of Boston. Book 17 of The cial. The first scheduled performance of the is what students read. Connected prose is Odyssey: Odysseus is home, he’s mad, and symphony had been canceled; it had been slated for Patriots’ Day, the day of the Bos- ton Marathon. As a result, more than one What I have noticed as an educator is that the hundred of the injured from the marathon physical and cognitive act of reading has become bombing were present at Symphony Hall for the rescheduled performance, and so were a progressively harder for the generations of students goodly number of the first responders. Off who have passed through my classroom. Images, Zander went, carrying the rest of us with him, leading the symphony in a majestic sound bites, the staccato communications of social gallop. It was all we could do, by the time the chorus entered, to stop from standing. media: this is what students read. When the symphony ended, everybody jumped up and erupted in applause, and the laborious. (Grammar is defunct.) Think he’s been disguised by Athena to look like lady standing next to me, a perfect stranger, again of the Renaissance, and wonder: if the a beggar so that nobody, for his own safety, flung her arms around me. There was very nature of literacy is changing–indeed, will recognize him. But Athena forgot about incredible electricity in that room, made if it has changed already–then where does one person: Odysseus’s dog, Argos. Argos possible through music and through human this leave the humanities? is blind, he’s wasted, he’s covered with lice, community. My short answer is, I don’t know. I am and he’s lying on a dung heap, but he hears Human interconnectedness. The power a historian: I understand things only after his master’s voice when Odysseus speaks to of disciplined imagination and of feeling. they have happened. But just as the digi- a palace servant. In that moment, Argos lifts No matter how our culture goes on to con- tal revolution has challenged our idea of his head, pricks up his ears, wags his tail, figure itself, people will crave this intercon- what a “book” is, surely all of these seismic and dies. (I also saw Old Yeller because, as I nection. Humans are the hardware, but the changes in our culture and society will alter said, I was born in 1951.) I sat on my porch, humanities are the software. Digital rev- also our idea of what a “university” is, what sobbing over the issue of The New Yorker that olutions notwithstanding, we the people a “department” is, what a “major” is, what had translated this particular paragraph of have the priority. After all, we were the first a “degree” is–and indeed, this is already The Odyssey. My husband asked me, “What’s World Wide Web. happening. The modern university is also wrong?” I replied, “Homer does have legs. the brainchild of the Renaissance. It has had The dog scene still works.” © 2014 by Paula Fredriksen

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 9 presentations

Higher education fueled the Industrial Revolution and the knowledge economy, and today it provides social mobility to people who may otherwise never dream of becoming leaders of our society.

plans. They have no magic that stir the the community leaders in Urbana-Cham- blood of men.” paign and in Chicago. And we came up with When I think about the time that the stu- six emerging themes, such as energy and the dents will spend with us, I think about the environment, health and wellness, and cul- amount of change that will occur during tural understanding. only those four to six years of study. I think These themes will frame our strate- about Thomas Friedman, author of The gies over the next several years of how we World is Flat (2005), and, six years later, That recruit new faculty and how we develop new Used to Be Us (with Michael Mandelbaum, courses. Are we ambitious? Yes, we are. But 2011). Friedman has said that when he wrote I hearken back to Daniel Burnham: “Make the first book, Facebook didn’t exist, tweet- no little plans.” And we are not alone in our Phyllis M. Wise ing was something birds did, 4G was a park- ambition; we share it with the great univer- Phyllis M. Wise is Chancellor of the University of ing space, the cloud was what was in the sky, sities of this country, which are together the Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was elected a LinkedIn was a prison, and apps were what envy of the world. I believe that higher edu- Fellow of the American Academy in 2013. you did when you wanted to go to college. cation’s great contribution to civilization But despite the rapid pace of change, the has been to develop the talent of predomi- mission of academic leaders and faculty nantly young people. It fueled the Industrial s the chancellor of a major research remains steadfastly the same. Revolution, it fueled the knowledge econ- A university, my job is to blend the ideal- Our mission is to extend the boundaries omy, and today, it provides social mobility ism of 43,000 students with the practicality of the minds of our students, and to extend to people who may otherwise never dream of running a billion-dollar enterprise with the boundaries of what is possible for the of becoming leaders of our society. more than 2,500 faculty and 8,000 employ- faculty so that they can pursue what they Higher education, particularly at research ees. An institution like the University of Illi- must. Our mission is to combine that ideal- universities, has transformed agriculture, nois has no shortage of idealism. Every fall, ism with practicality. For a leader of a public medicine, communications, energy, our we welcome about 7,000 students who leave research-intensive university with eroding study of the environment, and transporta- their communities and their families to join support from the state, with revolutionary tion. And if we plan carefully, higher edu- us and 36,000 other students in the middle research and innovations in learning, with cation will continue to play this role as a of cornfield country. They come from all rising tuition that is obstructing our wish to shaper of our world. I strongly believe that over–predominantly from Illinois, but also provide excellence and access for our stu- as educators and academic leaders, we owe from every state in the nation, and over one dents, this is an incredible time in higher it to the people of this world to provide to hundred countries around the world–and education. At a visioning exercise held at their daughters and sons the most transfor- with incredibly different backgrounds. It is the University of Illinois over the last few mative educational experiences that we pos- our privilege to work with these students, years, I have asked two questions: what are sibly can, while we also meet the challenges to teach and learn from them during these society’s greatest challenges going to be of society, providing the basic discoveries, formative years of their lives. When I think twenty to fifty years from now; and what innovations, and applications that will about the students who grace our campus, is the role of the major public research uni- make the world a better place for us all. n I am reminded of Daniel Burnham, one versity in the United States? We gathered of the great architects in the world, from information from many people, including © 2014 by Phyllis M. Wise Chicago, who advised, “Make no little our faculty, staff, students, and alums, and

10 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014

On the Arts and Sciences

On October 13, 2013, as part of the 2013 Induction weekend, Ken Burns, President of Florentine Films, and Ernest J. Moniz, U.S. Secretary of Energy, spoke about the challenges and opportunities for the arts and the sciences.

assumes is filled with the detritus. It is not; and 1880s that influenced the developing it is filled with extraordinarily good scenes career of Theodore Roosevelt through to that just don’t fit in. And most of what we the very last episode with Eleanor fighting struggled with over those seven years is try- for the Universal Declaration of Human ing to refine a narrative that a priori cannot Rights in San Francisco at the beginnings be encyclopedic but has to in some ways of the United Nations. You will not be dis- represent a diversity of things. appointed. The first thing we do is work with dozens We felt it was important that these not of scholars. In fact, of the people who appear appear–as they too often do in our stud- on camera and the people who advised us, ies–to be abbreviated to just a political we had 1,400 years of postgraduate experi- track. They had to have multiple modes of ence in the Roosevelts or adjacent presiden- inquiry. My old alma mater, Hampshire Col- tial administrations. lege, likes to say that we can get two things We worked with them for many years and by the triangulation that can take place from then with our own materials, and then we multiple perspectives. started to shape it all. Inevitably the film will not be everything or capture every Question nuance, but I think you will be surprised at Ken Burns how deeply it goes. It is a very complex nar- I read that when Franklin first got sick, Ken Burns is a documentary filmmaker and rative, perhaps the most complex we have Eleanor was going through his pockets President of Florentine Films. He was elected a yet had to wrestle with. The title is slightly and found a love letter. She knew he had Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and deceptive; it isn’t just an intimate history. It betrayed her. is about politics and what was going on. Sciences in 2011. For us, with the Roosevelts, it was impor­ Burns tant to have an inner perspective without Editor’s note: Ken Burns’s presentation included descending into psychobabble and also rep- That is not quite right; that discovery hap- a preview of his forthcoming film The Roo­ resent the larger political-social-military pened three years before. He was stricken in sevelts: An Intimate History. The remarks narrative as accurately as we could. the summer of 1921. In 1918, coming home that appear here are from the Question & Answer from an inspection tour as Assistant Sec- session that followed the preview. Question retary of the Navy, he developed double pneumonia. When he arrived after the ship Why did you choose to focus on the people had brought him to New York, Eleanor was Question and less on the political decisions they faced? helping to unpack and discovered he had been having an affair with her social secre- There is so much material. How do you pick Burns tary, Lucy Mercer. it, and how do you figure out the story? Eleanor had suspected something was That is the bias of the selection you saw. I going on and had already gotten rid of her. Ken Burns assure you the politics is there in spades. Yet Lucy had somehow joined the Navy and Everywhere, in every episode. From the been assigned to Franklin’s office. Then Well, this is our job. There is in filmmaking Depressions that took place, and the the Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels a proverbial cutting-room floor, which one class warfare that took place in the 1870s said, “wait a second,” and he got rid of her.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 11 presentations

Nonetheless, apparently, the infatuation, ple did back then of Roosevelt, including And let us also not dodge a central issue the affair–the only affair–went on. members of his own party. of my entire body of work: the president is a But she had discovered it three years Roosevelt did enjoy the luxury of own- black man. A good deal of the opposition, a before, and it was for the rest of her life, ing both the House and the Senate. Not good deal of the code words, the birther move- as someone says in the film, “the badge of the Supreme Court, although he would see ment–all of the obstacles that have been put honor of your intimacy with Eleanor Roo- what he could do about that. But even then in the way of his efforts–are based entirely on sevelt.” She extended that badge to many there were strange coalitions, and Social the color of his skin and not the content of his people in her life, rehashing this most hor- Security passes with a great deal of pro- character or the quality of his ideas. rible of betrayals, which had taken place gressivism–a progressivism born in the several years before the polio incident. Republican Party. Question

Seeing this was a very moving experience Too often we apply the template of other periods and for me, and some of those images that you temperaments to a contemporary situation and find had of Franklin Roosevelt brought me to tears. I was a small child during the Second people lacking or wanting in some huge respect, as World War, during which time my father many people did back then of Roosevelt, including was absent. Your film brought back that experience of looking up to Franklin Roo­ members of his own party. sevelt as a surrogate for my absent father.

Burns Question So there are some very interesting paral- lels to today. It is stunning the kind of grid- You hearten me, because I am not inter- I would love to hear you speculate about the lock that Barack Obama faces with regard to ested in excavating the dry dates and facts current political situation based on Roo­ even the simplest of things–say, the origi- and events of the past. I am interested in an sevelt’s optimism. I believe Roosevelt said nal stimulus package, which is a fraction emotional archaeology. something like, “There are those who wel- of what Franklin Roosevelt was able to do That does not mean I am interested in sen- come me and I welcome their hate,” talking back then in real dollars. One thinks about timentality or nostalgia. But our founders about the economic royalists. Some say that the kind of speed with which an economic understood correctly that there are higher the current president ought to take that kind recovery would have been over had the gov- emotions, and too often in our correct of attitude and show that kind of strength. ernment primed the pump. retreat from sentimentality and nostalgia we I am wondering what the lessons of history Now, many people disagree with me go merely to the rational world where one are: Can you be Roosevelt again, or was it a politically and economically about that, and plus one always equals two. We do so at our moment in time that is not repeatable with what we try to do in our film is not impose peril, because we miss the power not only that kind of presidential leadership? our own sense of perspective on it, but of the humanities but also of the sciences, allow different voices to coexist. But I think where one and one quite often makes three. Burns Barack Obama is very much like fdr. He is This is what compels our personal lives a community organizer, and a lot of that is and our love, our sex, our relationships, our This is the ultimate question. And this is about how you get people to appeal to their family, our art, our work: all of this stuff has merely one man’s opinion: you cannot be better angels, as John Meacham and Abra- to do with that improbable calculus. John Franklin Roosevelt, because there can be ham Lincoln would say. Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, only one Franklin Roosevelt. These are really complex things. But hav- and others of our founders spoke about the Too often we apply the template of other ing the kind of Republican Party that thinks pursuit of Happiness, with a capital H–not periods and temperaments to a contempo- that funding research and development the pursuit of things but some other larger rary situation and find people lacking or in essential science is frivolous provides lifelong learning that would in turn synthe- wanting in some huge respect, as many peo- impediments. size and provide the spark–believing that if

12 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 on the arts and sciences

human beings were free enough to govern Our founders understood correctly that there are themselves and choose their own faith and pursuits that a new kind of human evolution higher emotions, and too often in our correct retreat would take place, one of the mind and of the from sentimentality and nostalgia we go merely to the spirit. That is the pursuit of happiness. I am a Lincoln man and have been all of rational world where one plus one always equals two. my professional life, but I have always seen George Washington as number one. In base- We do so at our peril, because we miss the power not ball, it’s Babe Ruth; in pop music, it’s the only of the humanities but also of the sciences, where Beatles. But then you are always really argu- ing about who’s in the number two posi- one and one quite often makes three. tion. Lincoln has always held that position for me, but after working on this film, I have “Look, can you get me from paragraph two half a century–until recently–been essen- to say that Franklin Roosevelt joins him in to paragraph three on page seven of episode tially anti-narrative, at times interested in that second position. six?”–which is something too many of my Marxist or economic determinist theories or After that you might have to pick up the colleagues do. They don’t start shooting semiotics or deconstruction or queer studies. list at number ten and leave all the rest until after the script is set in stone, and then Strangely enough, the popular forms that blank, because the difference between those it is set in stone and there is no corrigibility have been legitimately denigrated for their three extraordinary human beings, those involved. But we are corrigible to the end. superficiality nonetheless, at least as we extraordinarily effective politicians, and all In fact, at the last screening–what we call try to configure them, present possibilities the rest is so great. A lot of this has to do, I a fine cut–we were moving to what we call of embracing all of those disciplines, all of think, with these higher emotional connec- “lock the picture, stop editing.” We were those particular insights or ways of looking tions that become the glue that might hold adding things that came out of conversations at or structuring materials. the shards of that dry pottery excavated we were having with ourselves and with our The new film is not without narrative. from some distant and useless past. scholars, just about fine-tuning things. About It is not without economic, even Marxist- antitrust back in episode two with Theodore determinist, issues and conflicts, dialectics, Question Roosevelt and finding more places where that take place throughout the film. Nor is it the ghost of Theodore can appear. He dies at without a consideration of what we would I am curious how you bring the contribu- the end of episode three, but he is this huge call today queer studies, or deconstruction, tions from historians and other academic presence. You hear his name mentioned two or semiotics, or other things. figures together. Do you have them involved times in the polio episode and five times in We think the abandonment of narrative in an iterative way over the entire project? the introduction to episode five, where he has in the academic academy was a gigantic been dead for 13 years. mistake–for the academy as well as for the Burns Many of the scholars who have worked rest of us–because no longer does an inter- with me–like William Leuchtenburg has est in the stories of our path trickle down as They are involved from the beginning. for almost 35 years–understand not just it once did. That is being corrected, but we They may look at initial proposals, advise the apples and oranges of scholarship but have had to rely on popular history to return as to how the structuring might be–not in also what we are doing. They have not only to a sense of a very essential “and then, and a filmic sense, but from a kind of thematic brought great scholarship to our films but then, and then,” which is the building block sense–and then they are involved in look- also helped us understand so much more of any narrative. ing at two or three iterations of the script about our subjects. The scholars we use–who are, we believe, before we even begin to start editing. And we think we have shown them ways in among the very best in their fields in this Remember, we are out collecting stuff. We which the particular fashions in the human- particular subject–are our friends from shoot first and ask questions later. I don’t ities represent period myopia. In the field I beginning to end. We don’t let them go if we want to go to David McCullough or Doris bump up against the most, history, the fash- feel they have huge concerns: thematically, Kearns Goodwin or George Will and say, ions of historiography have for more than structurally, or otherwise.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 13 presentations

Question Question for public television. We know that we con- sistently reach tens of millions of people I am curious about the process you go How do you avoid schizophrenia when you with a large series. The Civil War is still the through to find things: letters, recordings, have multiple projects going on at the same highest rated. The next is Baseball, then The articles, photos, films. time? War (about World War II), then The National Parks, and then The Dust Bowl and Prohibition. Burns Burns If you take out the British import Downton Abbey, we own most of the top five highest- The rules are slightly different, but the It is like your children. I can be up in my rated programs. scholarship we do, the patience that is office, and when one of my four daughters Each day school is in session, The Civil War required, would in no way shock a scholar, walks in the door, I recognize her voice. series, which is more than 23 years old, will scientist, or someone doing research for a I am making the same film over and over be shown 2,500 times. Lewis & Clark, 1,500 book. We spent seven years on this. If you again. That is to say, each film asks a decep- to 1,700 times. Baseball about 1,200 times; are doing it quick and dirty, as the History tively simple question: “Who are we? Who The War, the same. We have pretty good Channel might (which doesn’t do his- are these strange and complicated people numbers to claim that. Unlike most broad- tory anymore anyway) or Arts and Enter- who like to call themselves Americans? cast television, which is skywriting and tainment, now called a&e (although it is What does an investigation of the past tell disappears at the first zephyr, our films are neither), you might be able to assemble us about not only where we have been but long-lasting. everything you need with a few visits to where we are and where we may be going?” Hyde Park on the Hudson died, I am happy various archives. So the schizophrenia is avoided by both to say, a very quick death. I had the oppor- We had to spend years. We assembled a the similarity and the distinctions: the simi- tunity to see it at the Telluride Film Festi- database for this film of more than 22,000 larity that these are my girls, and the distinc- val before its release in 2012. I know a little images that are all completely described tions that Sarah, Lilly, Olivia, and Willa are bit about the story, and perhaps this gives as to their provenance: where they came about as different from each other as night me a kind of righteousness that I should from, who owns the rights, and a full and day. temper before I give you the review I am description of what is taking place in each about to give! one. The final film probably has 2,500 still Question The film postulates that the king and photographs in it. queen of England–who have come to the The same is true of the newsreels and of From your perspective in the cinema and United States to gauge where their Amer- the talking heads, where a few onscreen a deep sense of history, what is your view ican cousins will be for the coming war– appearances might represent three hours of the recent popular movie about Roo­ might have gotten lost on their way from of interview transcripts. But with those few sevelt on the Hudson? Do you consider it Manhattan to a hugely important picnic appearances, you can have a huge presence a travesty that trivialized the story, or does that takes place at Hyde Park. In the film in an episode. it have some redeeming historical value? they end up in some field of flowers. In real- I have lived in New Hampshire for the Second, how do you find out roughly how ity, tens of thousands, hundreds of thou- last 35 years. We make maple syrup there. large your audience is for these fantastic sands of Americans lined the road every We take 40 gallons of sap to make one gal- movies compared to the broader American stretch of the way; there was no danger of lon of syrup. That sort of process is famil- movie-going audience? being lost. iar to scholars and scientists, I believe. It The film also suggests that Daisy Suckley involves a great deal of patience, which Burns was part of a harem that included her and two is something my medium is not always secretaries–Missy LeHand and Grace Tully, famous for. We also ask our audiences Let me answer the second part of your ques- as well as his old love Lucy Mercer–a harem to reward our work with their attention, tion first while I sharpen my knife for the that Eleanor Roosevelt looked on with a kind which is, in this day and age, a much more first half. of bemused lesbian inattention. The most difficult proposition. It is hard to measure and compare motion egregious thing of all is the idea that Suckley pictures and their box office with the ratings was there to service the president, who is por-

14 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 on the arts and sciences

trayed as a randy, lecherous old man. Nothing Burns of Franklin Roosevelt. The Oyster Bay Roo- could be further from the truth. sevelts had the sense that they were the We can complain and excoriate the liber- The “emotional archaeology” phrase was inheritors of the medal of tr, not this Dem- ties that were taken by the filmmaker, while something I said to a reporter when I was ocrat Franklin, who seemed to be passing exalting the great performances given by trying to explain what I was doing. My first them at every point along the road. Laura Linney (as Daisy Suckley) and Bill film was an hour-long film calledBrook - Something else that happens in families is Murray, who played fdr quite effectively, lyn Bridge; it was the first time people were that you become prisoners of the stories you as well as a couple of scenes that were quite using first-person voices, active movement have been told and the things you believe. wonderful. But we also have to stand back within the frames of things, and compli- We have found, particularly in this one, that and permit this to happen. I know of one cated sound effects and music. When the it is very important to triangulate with the other fellow who took lots of histories, con- reporter asked me why anyone in their right historians and the people who have studied flated them, merged characters, rearranged mind should watch a film about a bridge your subject. We have met most of the descendants, we love them, and we hope we have their John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, blessings. But there will be times they will and others of our founders spoke about the pursuit say, “This story wasn’t told,” and we have to answer, “Yeah, because it’s not as impor­ of Happiness, with a capital H, believing that if human tant, we think, to the larger narrative.” But each thing is different. And at many beings were free enough to govern themselves and junctures, we considered going to dozens of choose their own faith and pursuits that a new kind people from both branches of the family– the Hyde Park and Oyster Bay sides of the of human evolution would take place, one of the Roosevelts–to find some intimacies. At the mind and of the spirit. end we always thought that was the prudent thing to do. the dates, and changed settings. His name is that wasn’t ten minutes or shorter, I said Question William Shakespeare, and we still like him I had a really hard time getting it down to for doing that sort of stuff. an hour. (As you know, my profligacy has The thing that strikes me about your films So we want to make sure we leave open continued since then, and with my Vietnam is that you bring out the humanity of the the door for this kind of wholesale revision- project I will subject you to 20 hours.) central figures, but also the humanity of the ism and changing of history in hopes that With regard to family members: it people who are living there. Within The Civil we do not inherit too many JFKs and Hyde depends. Sometimes, in intimate stories, War, for example, there are so many letters Park on the Hudsons. Unfortunately, we still family members are hugely important to from people in the field; it is not just about have to muddle through them in order to sort stuff out: when you are able to reach out the prosecution of the war. How do you go get the few people whose license delivers to people who knew the person and can help about achieving that kind of balance? extraordinary truths. flesh them out, that is helpful. That was the case with my Frank Lloyd Wright and Huey Burns Question Long projects, and in an upcoming film on Jackie Robinson I interviewed his widow, Well, it goes back to Ecclesiastes and the I was touched by your use of the term emo- daughter, and surviving son extensively; we idea that human nature remains the same. tional archaeology. How do you negotiate have not started editing, but I imagine they We say “celebrity,” and what you are strug- and interact with the living members of the will be a huge part of it. gling not to say is “ordinary people.” What family as part of your research? Do they With the Roosevelts, you have two fam- you discover is there is no such thing as an approach you? Do you approach them? And ilies–two families that were often at war ordinary person: the complexity in each of how was that interaction? with each other because of the ascendancy us is worth volumes.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 15 presentations

One of the reasons the academic acad- sometimes literally but more often than not emy retreated, understandably, from narra- thematically and figuratively. tive is that it was always the history of great If you do that, then you have the possibil- men. In American history, it was a series of ity to develop the kind of empathies, as well presidential administrations punctuated by as understandings, that come from that tri- wars. (Because of my parochial and provin- angulation. You only get better. As scientists cial nature, I am limiting my comments to will tell you, you can fix a point much more American history. That is my bailiwick, and accurately if you can triangulate it. In my it makes me even more limited in my confi- case, if you do it only one way, you are then dence to speak beyond it.) subject to the fashions of historiography. The academic academy quite correctly And we hope to escape their specific gravity rejected that model, unfortunately reject- as often as we can. n ing narrative at the same time, favoring instead a kind of bottom-up story that was © 2014 by Ken Burns going to tell the millions of historic stories of women, labor, minorities, and so-called ordinary people like you and me. What hap- pened was that the pendulum just swung to the other extreme. Some historians said you could write a history of Illinois without mentioning Abraham Lincoln. That cannot happen. What you want to have is some sort of synthesis. You want one and one to equal three. That is what I am trying to do. And I think that is what you want to happen. You want to have a top-down version–those great men did do great things–meeting a bottom-up version that is able to embrace and contain the multitudes, and thus bring in stories about labor, about women. The approach I try to take with my films permits us to unify them and meet in the middle and to have some sense of both. There is a moment in the Civil War series that speaks directly to this. We started with Abraham Lincoln and then went to the head of the Union Army, then we went down to a corps commander, a general, and then we went down to a division, and then we went down to a regiment, and then we went down to a captain, and then we went down to an individual private. We then went over to an individual private on the Confederate side and took it back up to Jefferson Davis. That is what we try to do in every film–

16 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 on the arts and sciences

four major missions: (1) nuclear security, to debate what’s not debatable.” The the- nuclear weapons, nuclear materials con- sis we have consistently put forward, and trol; (2) windmills, which characterize our on which I believe we are making serious work on energy technologies; (3) quarks: progress in the political environment, is we remain the largest supporter of the that what we know about the risks of cli- physical sciences in this country, provid- mate change is well beyond what we need ing essential tools for both big science and to know in order to drive prudent action on small science, such as light sources, neutron the part of the government. We can argue sources, accelerators; and (4) quagmires, about what we do, how fast we do it, but we which refer to our legal and moral obliga- are moving beyond the issue of debating the

What we know about the risks of climate change is well beyond what we need to know in order to drive prudent action on the part of the government.

tion to clean up the mess of the Cold War. fundamental driver to take action. Now, is Ernest J. Moniz The windmills and weapons align with the everyone in Congress there? No. But we are Ernest J. Moniz is U.S. Secretary of Energy. He work of this Academy, particularly Acad- now unmistakably getting into the issue of was elected a Fellow of the American Academy emy projects on global security and energy “what do we do?” of Arts and Sciences in 2013. and the global nuclear future. The statement I am making is not based Twenty-five years ago, the human genome upon interpreting complex results of com- project was a critically important undertak- plex models. I am not diminishing the here are a lot of comments about the ing. Unknown to many is the fact that this importance of those models, but to drive T situation in Washington, D.C., right project was started by Charles De­Lisi, who action, it is frankly data and arithmetic. now, particularly around the shutdown subsequently served as the dean of engi- After all, the issue of degrees centigrade–I and the debt ceiling. I can confirm from neering at Boston University. He went from am not going to argue whether it is one or the front lines the absurdity of the current the National Institutes of Health to the doe six–being associated with scales like dou- situation. If you look at only the science to head the research program on health and bling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere areas, the Antarctic research programs are the environment. has been known for well over a century. The in great jeopardy, and one of last year’s When he saw the kinds of capabilities data tell you that that kind of a scale is enor- Nobel Prize winners was furloughed last doe had for “industrial-type science”– mously important for the globe. week. At the Department of Energy (doe), large, high throughput, high computa- We know how to count molecules: how our Energy Information Administration tion–he ran a workshop at Los Alamos that many co2 molecules are emitted in com- went on furlough on Friday. So now essen- was the beginning of the Human Genome bustion of fossil fuels. And if we just naively tial information services that are supplied Project. The collaboration went all the way do the arithmetic, it would be just over two to companies and to researchers across the through to the end: doe was responsible for decades to reach doubling. Now, we know country–information on things like how much of the tool development and for three the carbon cycle stretches that out; there is much petroleum product we have in storage chromosomes being mapped. So we have a absorption in the oceans, etc. But the scales should a major hurricane occur–have been history of using our tools to go beyond what are clear. As a basis for prudent action, we closed down. you would think of as the borders of doe’s don’t need to go to the complex models. The The missions of the doe are complex. missions. trap there, of course, is that many are look- Sometimes we are semi-amusingly charac- During my first day in office, the media ing for anomalies to point to, but never with terized as the department of weapons and picked up on a sound bite relevant to the a scientific suggestion as to why the simple windmills, quarks and quagmires. We have climate-change discussion: “I’m not here counting rules don’t apply.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 17 presentations

That is a very important part of the argu- highly regulated business with lots of polit- The president, at the end of June, did ment, and I believe we are making progress, ical interest is a persistent reality. change the game when he put forward in his that we have moved onto the next stage. Those are not a collection of characteris- Georgetown speech a climate action plan But when all is said and done, we also must tics for a nimble system, however, one that (cap). The plan is lengthy and has three remember that carbon dioxide is unique we can imagine changing in a short time. It overall large elements. One is to mitigate among the greenhouse gases in the sense is also why we have to start today, or start the risks of climate change, and this means of its long (namely, centuries’ scale) per- yesterday, to make the transition: over essentially lowering greenhouse gas emis- sistence. As the Intergovernmental Panel this decade-long period, we need to have sions over time. on Climate Change report said a few weeks made substantial progress. That is why this Second, and this was a new step that ago, we can think of this as leading to a co2 decade will be so critical. had been avoided for a long time by many, emissions budget for any particular level I argue–and this is somewhat controver- including many in the environmental com- of co2 concentrations. If one takes a stan- sial in the government–that it is critical to munity: we have to recognize that we are dard that has been talked about–for exam- accelerate the transformation of the energy already experiencing some of the impacts ple, 450 parts per million–it’s about two system to a pace that has not been typical. of climate change (statistically this is clear). decades to run out the budget. That is not But to accelerate this transformation, we Therefore, even as we mitigate, we have to much time for the energy system. have to work and do work along the entire start focusing on adaptation measures. The energy system is hard to move, but innovation chain, from basic research to Third, we have to collaborate with other we have to move it, and this decade is criti- development to demonstration and deploy- countries–China is an obvious example– cal. We have to make substantial progress in ment of the new technologies. because in the end, even if we in the United bending the curve of greenhouse gas emis- This is where it gets a bit more compli- States show some leadership in this, we can- sions over the next ten to twenty years. cated. For example, loan-guarantee pro- not solve the real problems without interna- The energy business is a multi-trillion- grams, which are supposed to advance tional collaboration. dollar-per-year business that is highly capi- technologies beyond where they currently cap acknowledges that it would be pref- talized–with huge capital requirements for sit in the marketplace: we have an active erable to work with the Congress for legis- lative remedies; however, the plan is put We have to make substantial progress in bending forward on the assumption that this will not happen in these next years. And so cap the curve of greenhouse gas emissions over the is, roughly speaking, everything we could think of doing using existing executive next ten to twenty years. authorities to advance the program. A lot of this will be the federal government assets that last a long time. Eighty percent loan portfolio today of nearly $35 billion working with cities and states, where a lot of the business today is fossil fuel. Funda- to advance a low-carbon world, and we of creativity is actually coming to the fore in mentally it is a commodity business. So a have tens of billions of dollars of remaining terms of advancing climate programs. solar energy source and a coal plant are both authority to do more. As I said, this decade is critical for launch- providing the same service to the end user: But even Congress itself voted for a ing this transformation. Roughly speaking, producing light. It is not like the it world, loan-loss reserve account, anticipating we have to do three big things. First, we where lots of brand-new consumer services that clearly we would have some failures have to raise our game on energy efficiency, are being offered. This makes change highly (e.g., Solyndra) in a portfolio of this type. on demand-side management. Second, we cost sensitive. Our current projection is that we will not have to continue, at least for some time, the This is the framework within which we use more than 10 percent of the loan-loss increasing reliance on natural gas, because must make the transformation to a low- reserve account, which you might assume the truth is that it has been displacing coal, carbon world. Energy provides essential means a pretty successful risk management and that has in turn accounted for roughly services for everything we do. As a result, process. Of course, in the political arena, half of our co2 emissions reductions. We there is no point in complaining about the having voted for something does not change are now back to the co2 emissions levels of nature of the business. That it will remain a the underlying game. 1995. Third, we have to innovate. We have

18 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 on the arts and sciences

to have the very low-carbon technologies cost-effective and ready to compete in the marketplace by the end of this decade. A lot is going on with energy efficiency. We have doubled light vehicle efficiency standards up to 2025, and the Department of Energy, working with the Office of Man- agement and Budget, has dislodged a real backlog of appliance efficiency standards. We also extended the loan program. We have $8 billion in new loan authority to fund fossil fuel projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We need to address fossil fuels as well as look at renewables. While a lot of people have not been pay- ing attention, wind, solar, led, and electric car technologies have been reaching mar- ketplace competitiveness. Clearly some pol- icy incentives have been in place here, but we have always had time-limited incentives. In fact, the natural gas industry had about twenty years of incentives, and obviously Figure 1 now it is running on its own. In 2012, the largest capacity addition of any single technology in the United States was wind (see Figure 1). On-shore wind now costs about 5 cents per kilowatt-hour in good wind locations. Despite a slight increase in costs a few years ago, the trend is again downward, and the cost reduction over the last thirty years is dramatic. The Holy Grail of photovoltaic mod- ules has been 50 cents per watt (see Figure 2). The price is now about 75 cents. Over five years, we have seen an enormous drop in these costs, and deployment has been going up; it is still small, but it is going up. Today, a utility can build a large photovol- taic farm for about $1.80 per watt, which, once you do the arithmetic (assuming a 20 percent capacity factor and a 5 percent cost for capital), works out to about 5 cents per kilowatt-hour–which is very competitive. With the falling cost of wind and solar energy, business models in the energy Figure 2 industry are being challenged. That is a part

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 19 presentations

of the transformation that we will need, but it’s not always smooth. For example, in many states today you see a raging battle between established utilities and public policies on “net metering.” If you own a rooftop solar system and you are still connected to the grid–which you must be if you want to sell the power back–who pays? The utilities are now saying we need different rate structures so that everybody pays their fair share of infrastructure costs. I don’t know how it will turn out. But it is a revolution. Business models are changing. The cost reductions for leds are rather incredible and are still occurring (see Fig- ure 3). Soon after we published a chart showing that the cost of an led replace- ment for a 60-watt incandescent bulb was about $15, Wal-Mart announced they were Figure 3 selling some leds at $10. A 60-watt incandescent lightbulb lasts about a thousand hours. The led replace- ment gives twenty-five thousand hours of operation. Thus, not only will you save because one replacement led now costs less than the equivalent twenty-five incan- descent bulbs; you will also save about $125 in energy costs over the lifetime of the led. At today’s led prices, there is no issue of this being marketplace competitive. When the bulbs cost $50, price was a big initial bar- rier. Now with the cost at $10 or $5, we are looking at a revolution in lighting. Finally, the cost of lithium ion batteries for electric vehicles dropped by a factor of two from 2008 to 2012 (see Figure 4). This is still too much for the general marketplace. If the cost is, say, $500 per kilowatt-hour of storage and you want a vehicle with a substantial range, you might need 70 or 80 kilowatt-hours. That gets to be real money–something like $40,000 for your batteries. That is called a Tesla. And while * Tesla has been a great success, its business Figure 4 model is not quite that of gm or Nissan.

20 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 on the arts and sciences

We are already experiencing some of the impacts of climate change (statistically this is clear). Therefore, even as we mitigate, we have to start focusing on adaptation measures.

Tesla is following the track of the classic ple of rebuilding the infrastructure in a disruptive technology: find your niche mar- smart way. Let’s build it for good economic ket, which is not so cost-sensitive, and then reasons, but build in resilience to threats keep driving those costs down. Its initial goal like major storms. was just to provide a great performance car. We have to take a more integrated view. And a Tesla is really a great performance car. Features such as the resilience of the energy Tesla is one of the companies that got a infrastructure to extreme weather events doe loan guarantee: half a billion dollars. are part of it, but our infrastructure right At the time–you might recall that in 2009 now is under three kinds of threats that we the entire U.S. auto industry was supposed must look at. One is extreme weather. A to be dead–the loan was viewed as highly second is cybersecurity. The third is called risky. Tesla has now paid back the loan nine “kinetic,” which is a fancy word for events years early with a premium for the tax- such as assaults on electricity substations. payer–an early repayment penalty!–and in The doe is looking at all of this, bringing it 2014 they will have created three thousand together. jobs in California, and they are going to start Hurricane Sandy taught everybody exporting Teslas. When I was in Paris earlier another nasty lesson: our energy infra- this summer, I learned from the ambassador structures are highly interdependent: elec- there that Parisians have placed twenty-five tricity, natural gas, transportation fuels, thousand orders for Teslas, because it’s a communications. In New Jersey and part great performance car. of New York, when the grid went down, we This is a tough business to move quickly could not deliver transportation fuel, partly because of its scale, its capital requirements, because the preparation had not been done. etc. But don’t look away, because mass adop- We had no standard interconnects at most tion of these technologies is not always ten gas stations so that somebody could bring years out. I am optimistic that we can effect in a generator and get fuel pumps running. this kind of transformation. Other countries do this, and resiliency is The second part of the president’s climate going to be another major focus at the doe action plan is adaptation. Hurricane Sandy, over the next three years. We are looking at which was fed by higher-than-normal sea the infrastructure and the interdependen- levels and somewhat warmer water, was very cies so that we can be more resilient during destructive of our energy infrastructure. future events, which we expect will get more The doe is working with the state of New intense as the globe warms more. Jersey to design micro-grids–although at In closing, I repeat that this is a crucial 50–80 megawatts, they are not so micro– decade for action on climate change, such as that will restore infrastructure so New Jer- accelerating innovation and building resil- sey will be much more resilient to future ient energy infrastructure. n threats to the electricity system and protect key transportation routes. That is an exam- These remarks are in the public domain.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 21 presentations

Restoring Justice: The Legacy of Edward H. Levi

n November 13, 2013, David F. Levi (Dean and Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law), Jack Fuller (former Editor and Publisher of the Chicago Tribune), Virginia A. Seitz (Assistant Attorney General for the Office Oof Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice), Harold Hongju Koh (Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School), and Mark L. Wolf (Senior Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts) discussed the legacy of Attorney General Edward H. Levi. The program included a welcome from Leo L. Beranek, former President of the American Academy. The discussion served as the Academy’s 2001st Stated Meeting. The following is an edited transcript of the presentations.

of novels and other pieces. He was a special of the United States had been indicted. And assistant to Attorney General Levi from there was a general loss of confidence in all 1975 to 1977. Virginia Seitz, whom I may establishments. There was a belief that the call General Seitz, is the Assistant Attor- Department of Justice’s prosecutorial and ney General in the Office of Legal Counsel enforcement activities were too partisan. in the U.S. Department of Justice. Prior to And there was an acrimonious feeling in her appointment in 2011 she was a partner public discourse that was unprecedented at in the Supreme Court and Appellate prac- the time. tice of Sidley Austin, and she was also a law Tonight we are going to explore some clerk for Supreme Court Justice William J. of the themes that were of concern to my Brennan, Jr. Harold Koh, my good friend, is father as he was coming in to the Depart- the Sterling Professor of International Law ment of Justice. Jack Fuller will address at Yale Law School. From 2009 to 2013 he “Government by Discussion.” General Seitz was the Legal Adviser to the U.S. Depart- will discuss “A Ministry of Justice.” Harold ment of State. He has served as Dean of Koh will speak about “The Government Yale Law School and is a very distinguished and the University/Academy.” And Judge scholar, having written many influential Wolf will address the “Attorney General as works, particularly in the area of interna- a Teacher.” David F. Levi tional law. Mark Wolf is a Senior Judge of David F. Levi is Dean and Professor of Law at the United States District Court for the Duke University School of Law. He was elected District of Massachusetts. He was appointed a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and to the Court in 1985. He served as Deputy United States Attorney for the District of Sciences in 2007. Massachusetts from 1981 to 1985, and was a special assistant to Attorney General Levi e have a wonderful group of panelists from 1975 to 1977. Wwho will talk about the book that Jack It is not hard to draw certain parallels Fuller edited, Restoring Justice: The Speeches when we compare events today to what of Edward H. Levi, which collects many of we remember experiencing in the mid- the speeches when my father was attorney 1970s. Attorney General Edward Levi came general. Our speakers include Jack Fuller, to office right after Watergate. You may who is the former editor and publisher of remember that at that time many of his pre- the Chicago Tribune. He is a Pulitzer Prize- decessors were being prosecuted. The head winning journalist and author of a number of the fbi and two former attorneys general

22 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 restoring justice: the legacy of edward h. levi

The challenge that Levi set for himself, for the people around him in the Justice Department and for government in general, was not the repeal of human nature, but the improvement of human behavior by spirited conversation and rigorous mental effort.

for discretion about advice privately given or would understand his own position better. confidentially shared was another. A third is Levi was not naïve about pursuing govern- the simple desire within government to hold ment by discussion. Long before he became knowledge close, because knowledge is only attorney general he said the following in a power when it’s not generally known. speech to the American Jewish Committee Levi defended confidentiality in govern- (those of you who knew Levi well will rec- ment, something that was then, under the ognize this voice): name of executive privilege, discredited While I suppose all of us like to talk, few during the Nixon administration. And in of us like to listen, to have our thoughts Jack Fuller fact, there’s a talk in the book devoted to jarred, or to reshape our ideas. My grand- the idea of confidentiality. He defended Jack Fuller is former Editor and Publisher of the father, who was a well-known rabbi, and not only national security and secrecy in Chicago Tribune and former President of the who certainly liked to talk, came home appropriate circumstances but also the use Tribune Publishing Company. He served as a one day and announced he was feeling of executive privilege. Yet at the same time Special Assistant to Attorney General Edward very empty. “I have been exchanging he insisted on sharing information–par- Levi in the U.S. Department of Justice from 1975 thoughts,” he explained, “with Rabbi ticularly about such things as electronic to 1977. Fuller was elected a Fellow of the Amer- X–.” My grandfather, if not Rabbi X–, surveillance and intelligence investiga- ican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1991. would forgive me this quotation. It aptly tions by the fbi–more information than illustrates what goes on in most discus- had never been shared before. He did this sions, except that probably we don’t feel ttorney General Levi attributed the because he understood that one of the empty; we feel full with the same old phrase “government by discussion” drawbacks of secrecy is that it makes it A thoughts we always had.1 to Walter Bagehot. Bagehot had written impossible to generate public consensus. that government by discussion would break But it was not only consensus that Levi Government by discussion is an ideal. Like the bonds of the ages and set free the origi- sought in the idea of government by discus- all ideals, it is hard to realize. And the things nality of mankind. He was thinking mostly sion. He also liked to cite Cicero’s quote that that made it hard, including this eagerness about free discussion as a nurturer of dis- if you couldn’t understand your opponent’s to speak and unwillingness to listen, are in covery and creativity. Attorney General Levi position you didn’t understand your own. some sense just human nature. The chal- believed in that too, but the reason that the He believed vigorous discussion improved lenge that Levi set for himself, for the people phrase attracted him when he was attorney thought. Discussion was the way he made around him in the Justice Department and general was that he saw government by dis- decisions. In fact, sometimes when every- for government in general, was not the repeal cussion as a way to generate understanding one around him seemed to be in agreement of human nature, but the improvement of and consensus around very difficult, even in one direction he would often swing to the human behavior by spirited conversation tragic, policy choices that had to be made. other side with such vigor, such intellect, and rigorous mental effort. There were many barriers then as there are that he would scare you into believing that now to realizing the ideal of a government he might actually go in the direction he was 1 Jack Fuller, ed., Restoring Justice: The Speeches by discussion. Secrecy in the interest of arguing. He did that to motivate us to argue of Attorney General Edward H. Levi (Chicago: Uni- national security was one of them. The need our positions forcefully, but also so that he versity of Chicago Press, 2013), 84.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 23 presentations

each morning at the senior leadership gath- ing the Department’s lawyers where that ering in the Attorney General’s historic con- support was warranted; and he spoke with ference room, it is Edward Levi’s portrait we wisdom and moderation about the compet- all see. ing interests he sought to balance in every As the location of his portrait illus- decision he made. To paraphrase his words, trates, Attorney General Levi is seen as he “radiated the values” of the Depart- the person who restored not only jus- ment’s best self.

Attorney General Levi is seen as the person who restored not only justice but the Department of Justice in the wake of events that eroded public trust in many government institutions.

tice but the Department of Justice in the The speeches in Restoring Justice illustrate wake of events that eroded public trust in his judicious approach in confronting the Virginia A. Seitz many government institutions, including difficult legal and legal-policy issues of his Virginia A. Seitz has served as Assistant Attor- the Department. Every day, in numerous day – which are astonishingly similar to the ney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in decisions, the Department must deal with issues that confront the Department today. the United States Department of Justice since her the tension that arises because on the To read Edward Levi’s testimony about a Pro- one hand, it is led by political appointees posed National Security Surveillance Statute confirmation by the Senate in June 2011. who necessarily support the President’s is to read about the competing interests in program, while on the other hand, it privacy and security at stake in last year’s t is an honor to be here and to speak about must in significant respects be insulated fisa Amendments Act, and many other Ithe continuing influence of Edward Levi from political concerns. Levi’s shorthand statutes that involve information gathering from the point of view of an Assistant Attor- for this necessity was that although the and national security. At the end of a master- ney General currently serving in the Depart- Department is in the Executive Branch, it ful discussion of the relevant constitutional ment of Justice. I would like to describe must always act “judicially,” particularly principles, the dignitary, privacy, and law Edward Levi’s vision of a Department of when it is making decisions that require enforcement concerns at issue, and the need Justice that “acts judicially.” I have been at the balancing of important interests– to arrive at a solution that balances all these the Department for two and a half years and security and privacy, federal rights and concerns across shifting expectations of pri- I have been married to a career lawyer who state interests, government confidential- vacy and differing threats to security, Levi served more than a quarter-century there. ity and control over classified information noted that according to the New York Times, So I know that Edward Levi’s vision of the and freedom of the press. his proposal was full of loopholes that would Department is the rule by which its career Edward Levi arrived at the Department at extend the government’s powers, while oth- lawyers work every day and the gold stan- a moment when it had lost the trust of the ers were saying that it would “cripple our dard to which its political appointees aspire. nation by failing to maintain the proper sep- national intelligence effort.” By explaining I want to start with a quick symbolic point aration between the political sphere and the the concerns on both sides, he sought to per- about Attorney General Levi’s continu- Department’s “judicial” functions. During suade the public that the Department was ing influence. Each new Attorney General his tenure, he reacted without over-react- engaged in a serious, thoughtful attempt to and all Assistant Attorneys General at the ing–he crafted institutional structures to balance competing concerns and to do so Department may select the portrait of a for- ensure the integrity of the Department’s fairly and judicially. mer ag to hang in their offices. Of course, actions; he publicly recognized the faults Similarly, to read Edward Levi’s essay the Attorney General chooses first, and so and flaws in some past actions while defend- on the separation of powers is to read a

24 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 restoring justice: the legacy of edward h. levi

thoughtful and balanced treatment of the is part of the administration and yet it doctrine of executive privilege, all the more is tasked with making balanced, careful powerful because it was written at the legal decisions that are not political. The time when the doctrine’s legitimacy was Department’s career lawyers take this task under attack for abuse by the President. He seriously and, with each change of admin- acknowledged the importance of the pub- istration, they help ensure that the Depart- lic’s right to know the workings of govern- ment’s political appointees understand and ment and the potential for abuse in secrecy, uphold this standard and the culture that but then he built–step by step–a proof of supports it. I have never been at a farewell the importance and legitimacy of the doc- event for a political employee at the Depart- trine. He explained what he called a “basic ment where sincere tribute is not paid to the truth about human beings”–that they long-term career employees of the division. needed privacy in order to give and receive Attorney General Levi was legendary for the “candid, objective, blunt and harsh his appreciation of these lawyers and for the opinions” that he believed were necessary judicial nature of their conduct. He under- to good government decision making. stood that nurturing a deep appreciation These essays are timeless, careful exposi- for their advice and judgment would help tions of relevant considerations and com- ensure that the Department did not lose its peting interests–expositions that candidly way. He rejected the claim that “the struggle acknowledge Attorney General Levi’s rea- for power is what is truly and only genuine.” soned judgment about the appropriate bal- As he explained, this claim “diminishes rea- ance and the recognition that others may, son, disparages the ideal of the common legitimately, believe that a different balance or public good, and adds legitimacy to the is preferable. notion that law is only one more instru- And as significant as the content of these ment among many to be manipulated.”2 essays is to their judicial nature, their tone Despite what had come before, Attorney is equally important. Attorney General Levi General Levi had and frequently expressed was careful to describe, recognize, and value a powerful hope for the Department whose all competing interests. And while he sought integrity he helped restore–that among the to demonstrate that his judgments were people of the United States, there is still a correct, he allowed for the possibility of “great trust [in their government] waiting discussion and compromise. He valued and to be reawakened.” That is my experience accepted nuance and complexity–in one of the Department of Justice, and the expe- of the passages I personally found most sig- rience of many friends and colleagues who nificant, he said, “Powerful tools have been over the years and across many administra- developed to tell us less about more, to sim- tions have served there. The Department is plify what is complex, to substitute imme- not perfect, but it strains to achieve Edward diate impressions for a deeper judgment.”1 Levi’s vision for it. These are words for the Department and all those seeking to act judicially to live by. Having been at the Office of Legal Coun- sel for more than two years, I have a much deeper understanding of the place of the Department in the Executive Branch: it

1 Fuller, ed., Restoring Justice, 12. 2 Fuller, ed., Restoring Justice, 45.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 25 presentations

long quest for knowledge and truth, you to express during WikiLeaks. Everyone was might actually be not just influential but excited that Julian Assange and Snowden wise. And finally, that universities do have were leaking huge amounts of information something to teach the government about and nobody was talking about the corrosive restoring justice, and that someone who effect that it was having within the govern- has spent his life teaching and studying law ment in terms of confidentiality. In every can actually restore the confidence of the organization I have been in, particularly in rule of law for a battered nation. This was a academic life, confidential discussions are very inspirational message to me. absolutely critical, so that in fact the indi- There are many interesting things about vidual right to privacy and governmental academia in this book. The most interest- confidentiality flow from the same source. ing statement that Edward Levi makes is This is something that Ed Levi saw and that scholars must have the freedom to be expressed really masterfully in his speech in wrong, so they may be right. By contrast, 1975 and it’s something I wish we would say policy-makers don’t really have the freedom more about publicly now. to be wrong; that’s one reason why there is The second is about nsa surveillance. Jack a difference between being a professor and Fuller recalls that when he asked the nsa being a policy-maker. The policy-makers about the Fourth Amendment, their reply Harold Hongju Koh need to get it right the first time. On the was, “Actually we hadn’t thought about it.” Harold Hongju Koh is Sterling Professor of other hand, I was very struck by the fact that While I’m sure they thought about it more International Law at Yale Law School. He was Edward Levi, even after he was at the Justice now than then, it is pretty clear that our intel- elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Department, convened a group of constitu- ligence agencies have become more focused tional law professors, including Phil Kur- on their technological capacities than on the Arts and Sciences in 2000. land and Paul Freund, to advise him on the rights affected by what they do. After 9/11

his is a brilliant book edited by Jack The key to Ed Levi’s contribution to American life is T Fuller. To be honest, it made me nos- talgic, and I don’t get nostalgic for Water- that he believed that the law could be an antidote for gate that often! When you read these speeches you remember there was a time even the most pervasive national cynicism. when people in politics in Washington acted like adults, when our government was Fourth Amendment questions raised by the we built very extensive structures to protect committed to transparency and working nsa surveillance issue. It shows that even to security and we did not develop structures out hard problems together, when attor- this day, academics may contribute valuable to protect liberty and privacy that were of neys general wrote their own speeches, ideas to public debate–for example, today’s equivalent strength. Technology moved and when public officials tried to explain discussion about having a privacy advocate ahead of law and oversight structures. That complicated ideas to the public. David Levi representing the private interest in the might have been bearable for 12 years but asked me to say something about what Ed debate about the nsa surveillance. now that we are trying to move to a new Levi’s book means for a professor who goes Let me highlight three ideas in the book phase, to a sounder footing, we need to har- in and out of the government. I have served that jumped out at me as being particularly monize the structures of security and liberty for 10 years in the government in my 30 relevant to things that I had to work on in in a more satisfactory way. That is something years as a lawyer. What this book gives me my recent time at the State Department. that I think Ed Levi saw very clearly. is faith that if you are a professor, some of The first is the passage that Jack mentioned The final point is about the relationship what academics know matters. At a time about the relationship between confiden- between cynicism and belief in the rule of of national crisis, a professor can make tiality and privacy. This is an idea that we law. The word “cynicism” appears a lot in things better. If you have engaged in a life- tried to express and Secretary Clinton tried Edward Levi’s book, because when he came

26 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 restoring justice: the legacy of edward h. levi

After 9/11 we built very extensive structures to protect security and we did not develop structures to protect liberty and privacy that were of equivalent strength. Technology moved ahead of law and oversight structures. . . . Now that we are trying to move to a new phase, a sounder footing, we need to harmonize the structures of security and liberty in a more satisfactory way. in to the Department of Justice, people Academy–I am sure you will show the peo- were understandably pretty cynical. There ple of America that they may trust in the law had been five attorneys general in six years, and in you.”2 And that, I think, is the key to and a couple of them had been indicted. It Ed Levi’s contribution to American life. He was not a great moment for people who said believed that the law could be an antidote that we are lawyers or we believe in the rule for even the most pervasive national cyni- of law. And he even said at his own swear- cism. As Lincoln would say, he was calling ing-in, “We have lived in a time of change all of us as lawyers and academics to the and corrosive skepticism and cynicism “better angels of our nature.” That is why concerning the administration of justice. even today, 40 years later, we should still be Nothing can more weaken the quality of listening to him. life or imperil the realization of those goals we all hold dear than our failures to make clear by word and deed that our law is not an instrument of partisan purpose.”1 And so he put forward as an antidote to this cyni- cism the notions of evenhandedness in the law, a commitment to decency, a suggestion that law is part of life, that a good legal sys- tem is like a good family or a good religious institution. It embodies the values that are common to many. And maybe the most touching speech of all was the one that he gave to the graduat- ing class of the fbi National Academy, to people who are going off to be police offi- cers. He said to them, “You stand where fear and cynicism now meet. But there is also a great trust waiting to be reawakened. By your conduct and skill–and I hope in part by virtue of what you have learned at this

1 Fuller, ed., Restoring Justice, vii. 2 Fuller, ed., Restoring Justice, 4.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 27 presentations

I got some direct insight into this eleven found and enduring influence on me. It is years later, in 1986, when Edward spoke at interesting to be reminded of the aspirations the memorial for my friend and colleague, he expressed at the fbi Academy because I a member of this Academy, Judge Charles E. would say that the most obvious influence Wyzanski. Charlie Wyzanski had a remark- Edward had on me was manifest in the case able career in Washington in the admin- involving James “Whitey” Bulger. istration of Franklin Roosevelt before he Edward had a portrait of Attorney Gen- was 30 years old. In a eulogy for Charlie, eral Harlan Fiske Stone, a dean of Columbia Edward said that when he became Attor- Law School, hanging in a conference room. ney General he agreed with the judge that In 1924, when Stone created the modern fbi he should surround himself with youthful and appointed J. Edgar Hoover as its direc- assistants because “the young . . . bring to tor, Stone warned that “there is always the government a flexibility of mind, an inten- possibility that a secret police may become a sity of effort, and an enthusiasm of spirit.” menace to free government and free institu- Edward very much valued and wanted these tions because it carries with it the possibil- qualities to test what was, fairly or unfairly, ity of abuses of power, which are not always characterized as the conventional wisdom quickly apprehended or understood. It is of the career officials in the Department of important that its agents not be above the Mark L. Wolf Justice, and to complement the experience law or beyond its reach.” Mark L. Wolf is Senior Judge of the United States and wisdom of presidential appointees like As a young man, Edward had seen District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Assistant Attorney General Antonin Scalia Attorney General Biddle, whose portrait He served as a Special Assistant to Attorney and Solicitor General Robert Bork. also hung in his conference room, try to Edward fully engaged us in his govern- restrain Hoover during World War II when General Edward Levi in the U.S. Department of ment by discussion. I could use all my time he thought Hoover was a threat to civil lib- Justice from 1975 to 1977. regaling you with anecdotes concerning erties. And, as Jack and others have men-

would like to offer a more personal Edward taught all of his young assistants, and many I perspective because Edward Levi had a very profound effect on me as an individ- others, by his example of always being thoughtful, ual. In doing so, I will share some thoughts thorough, open, balanced, and, above all else, about how I think his history as a teacher substantially contributed to his most honorable. admirable legacy. One of the things that was very striking to Edward’s conversations with John Dunlop tioned, a considerable amount of Edward’s people about Edward, and I think it would of Harvard on immigration reform, with energy and time was devoted to dealing with strike this audience, too, is that his personal many experts on the proposed special pros- the aftermath of exposed abuses by the fbi, staff consisted exclusively of young assis- ecutor legislation, which he opposed, and such as the wiretapping of Martin Luther tants. In 1975, when he came to the Depart- on national no-fault automobile insurance King, Jr., and the illegal acquisition and ment of Justice, his staff included Jack Fuller, with Secretary of Transportation William dissemination of derogatory information Douglas Marvin, John Buckley, Ron Carr, and Coleman and John Hart Ely, his general about political activists and adversaries. me. We were all 28 years old. We knew that counsel, who went on to become dean of The scandals did not involve any abuses Edward had been a young assistant to Attor- Stanford Law School. by the fbi of its confidential informants. ney General Francis Biddle during World Edward taught all of his young assistants, Nevertheless, Edward sensed that this was War II. Nevertheless, we wondered why he and many others, by his example of always a place of potential danger. Therefore, he only hired people to work closely with him being thoughtful, thorough, open, balanced, developed guidelines for the use of confi- who were each under 30 themselves. and, above all else, honorable. He had a pro- dential informants. These guidelines rec-

28 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 restoring justice: the legacy of edward h. levi

ognized the need for confidentiality even a time of terror. I noted that as John Adams, confident you will concur that it provides within the Department of Justice. Ordi- the founder of this Academy, famously said, convincing evidence that this verdict was narily the fbi was not required to tell a pros- “A democracy is a government of laws and just and true. ecutor or any Department of Justice official not men.” I then added that in his remarks the identity of a confidential informant. when he was sworn-in that Harold quoted, However, if the fbi learned that an infor- and very consistent with what General Seitz mant, without authorization, had commit- mentioned, Edward said that “if we are to ted a crime, the agency was required to give have a government of laws and not men, that information to the Assistant Attorney then it particularly takes dedicated men and General for the Criminal Division, who women to accomplish this through their would decide whether to continue that per- zeal and determination, and also their con- Discussion son as an informant or instead make him a cern for fairness and impartiality.” subject for possible prosecution. I also quoted Edward last week in Prague Levi The guidelines were an exemplar of when I was speaking to young judges seek- Edward’s concept of the Executive Branch ing to establish honest judiciaries in many Several of our speakers mentioned that “acting judicially.” As I wrote in a decision former Soviet bloc countries. They found maybe this was a moment in time when one in 1999 concerning Whitey Bulger: “[A]l- Edward’s insights inspiring. And to my law could still give a fireside chat or give a talk to though no judicial officer is involved, the clerks, who are very well represented here fbi agents or address the nation in a fairly guidelines are similar in the approach to today, I express my aspirations in a memo- complex way, and people would actually pay the warrant requirement of the Fourth randum I give them the first day they come attention. Of course, we don’t know that Amendment which requires that decisions to work, by quoting what Edward said about they were paying attention then but we like concerning whether to authorize invasions Judge Henry Friendly at an event in 1976: to think maybe they were. But could that of privacy be made by neutral magistrates moment come again? How do we advise The dimensions of the law can be rather than by those engaged in the compet- the nation so that we can have this kind of narrow, its directions can be erratic, itive business of law enforcement, who do dialogue at a more complex level? responsive to whims and fads. The law not have sufficient objectivity to be trusted can be lost in technicality, confused to assess correctly the relative strength Fuller in its purposes. This is not true when of the interest which must be weighed.” law finds its proper spokesman, when As I also wrote in 1999, and again in 2001, It is much more difficult today to get and the craftsman is combined with the when I sentenced Bulger’s partner, Ste- hold people’s attention on anything, let humanist, when the issues of public phen Flemmi, these guidelines were issued alone something complex and difficult. So policy are seen in the light of history, in December 1976, about a month before in that respect the rhetorical effort has to be when the spokesman speaks within the Edward left office, and were subsequently even greater. I think that there are certain defined conception of the role of law, utterly ignored. The Department has since things that one could do, particularly in lawyers, and the function of the courts. acknowledged that if the guidelines had the areas of national security and freedom, been obeyed, the abuses revealed in the Edward brought all of these qualities that get people’s attention. I remember the Bulger case, including multiple murders for to the Department of Justice, which he very first day I arrived at the Department. I which Bulger will soon be sentenced, would regarded as a ministry of justice. When walked in and the secretary said, “It’s about have been prevented and an fbi agent would he died in 2000, the New York Times wrote, time. They have been waiting for you.” I had not now be in prison for being complicit in “In the two brief years that he led the Jus- my bags with me because I didn’t even have some of those murders. tice Department Mr. Levi set an example of a place to stay. “Who are they?” I asked. I have quoted Edward frequently since I respect for the Constitution and the rights “The attorney general and the fbi direc- have become a judge. Two weeks ago in Tur- of Americans that remains a benchmark tor,” she said. I went in to Edward’s office key, I spoke to several hundred judges and for distinguished public service today.” We and he said, “Good, you’re here. We can get lawyers from 36 countries about how to bal- are unanimous on this jury and, if you read started. Friday (or whatever day it was) I’m ance the interests of security and liberty at the book that Jack so brilliantly edited, I am going to be revealing the contents of J. Edgar

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 29 presentations

Hoover’s secret files to the Congress and I Let me give you an example: the nsa veillance without a warrant. We were doing want you to write the testimony.” Though surveillance issue versus the health care electronic surveillance without a warrant in we know now what the contents of the website issue. The exact same people who counter-espionage and in foreign intelligence secret files were, which were a lot less inter- think that the website designers are totally matters, and we were doing it regularly. This esting than people imagined them to be, I incompetent are terrified about what the was a very nervous-making time, and you think openly revealing things that had not nsa will do with all the information they might think that his testimony would there- been talked about before still gets attention have gathered. In one area ordinary citizens fore be a ringing endorsement of the absolute and I would be in favor of doing that now. assume total incompetence on the part of overwhelming evidence and constitutional the government; in another they assume argument that supported doing such things. Levi total competence. The testimony was not like that. It was about the tensions embodied in the Constitution Harold, is there a real role here for the Wolf and the Fourth Amendment. They were hard academy? to resolve then. And it may be even harder We see Edward’s mind and his voice in these now, but just as important. n Koh speeches. It was education by example. He led the department by recognizing com- © 2014 by David F. Levi, Jack Fuller, Virginia I think the academy can demand government plexity and nuance and by being transparent A. Seitz, Harold Hongju Koh, and Mark L. transparency and I think the attorney general in his own thought processes. Wolf, respectively can demand government transparency. And the attorney general can explain his reason- Koh ing to the people. This is what is amazing To view or listen to the presentations, about these speeches. Edward Levi obviously In the last ten years, how many speeches visit https://www.amacad.org/ wrote these speeches himself and he explains by a cabinet member do you remember? restoringjustice. very complex ideas in a way that makes you And how many were written by the cabinet understand the subtleties. I don’t see that member from the beginning to the end? today. I see a lot of unnecessary concealing In my view, it would be far better if we had of legal analysis, which damages trust, and more cabinet members who have coherent I see situations where when the choice is to philosophies and can express them them- be either more transparent or less transpar- selves in as clear a fashion as Ed Levi did. ent, the decision always tends toward the less transparent. Many of the internal opin- Fuller ions are presented in extracted form, when in fact it would be better if they were brought It is hard today to recognize alternative argu- forward either through the analysis of the ments and that people of good will might see attorney general in a speech somewhere or in things differently. But it was hard then, too, testimony somewhere. I think when trust is and we have to remember that. One of the damaged it is a time for more transparency to talks that I find most remarkable was testi- heal that damage. To be clear, my experience mony on electronic surveillance that Edward in the government is that the government gave to the Senate Select Committee on Intel- does a pretty good job. Real corruption, real ligence. The testimony goes for 60 pages in incompetence, is more rare than the pundits the book, and he declined the generous offer like to claim. In fact, there is a higher and of the chairman to do a shorter version. He more impressive level of internal discussion delivered all 60 pages to whoever was in the in government than I have seen in other parts room at the time. He delivered this talk at a of my life, and if people saw that they would time when significant courts were question- feel better about the government. ing the constitutionality of all electronic sur-

30 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014

Middle East Regional Security Challenges: The View from Turkey

n November 13, 2013, Memduh Karakullukçu, President and Vice Chair of the Global Relations Forum in Istanbul, O Turkey, spoke about “Middle East Regional Security Challenges: The View from Turkey” at the Academy’s Distin- guished Speaker Lunch and Roundtable Discussion. The following is an edited transcript of his presentation.

The economic vision for Turkey’s regional politics in the last decade has been about ensuring stability and increasing trade with our neighbors. Turkey’s growth model benefited from the stability in the region, which helped our exports and our economic growth during a time of crisis in our traditional export markets.

few days, we learned that the Iraqi Kurdish gap between society’s, especially the youth’s, leader, Mr. Barzani, will meet with the Turk- expectations and the delivered reality about ish Prime Minister in Diyarbakır, Turkey, life standards and economic prosperity. and that the Syrian Kurds and the Kurdish The gap was probably there for a long political party in Turkey are unhappy about time but the clear and vocal social expres- this meeting. And this list of incessant sion of that expectation is the novelty in the Memduh Karakullukçu twists and turns in the region goes on. region. Before this forceful expression, we Memduh Karakullukçu is President and Vice So rather than imposing on you the details simply did not know the magnitude even Chair of the Global Relations Forum in Istan- of the never-ending shifts of the Middle East though the expectations had been accu- bul, Turkey. and trying to decipher them in their minu- mulating over the years. What happened tiae, let me take a more distant view and with the Arab revolts is that we now know share how I am trying to make sense of it all. beyond any doubt that the expectation gap Introduction Three conceptual models guide my think- is there, and the odds are it will be an endur- ing and analysis of the region as I watch the ing characteristic of the region for some ecause events, disputes, and rapproche- events unfold. The first relates to the inter- time. How that gap between social expecta- Bment come and go very fast in my nal dynamics of the Arab revolt. The second tions and delivery is managed will thus be region, any snapshot I give today will have a focuses on the role of the United States in the key to the region’s evolution. very short expiration date. Just a month ago, the region. And the third concerns the Turk- I look at that gap–how it is evolving, Turkey’s and Iraq’s central governments ish role in the region. whether it is narrowing or broadening–to were at loggerheads. And now, after a recent project where we are heading. If it had been visit by our minister of foreign affairs, the Dynamics of the Arab Revolt managed well and smoothly, this could have discourse has rapidly shifted and may shift been a development decade. Instead, I think back again. Syria has so many factions, and When the Arab revolts started, the question this will end up being a security, or rather an their alliances and animosities are so com- that preoccupied my mind most was whether insecurity decade. plex and in flux, that any facts I can offer this would be a “security” decade or an “eco- Sound and good solutions to addressing will be either inaccurate or of very short- nomic and social development” decade, and the gap require significant capital injection term relevance. The internal dynamics of what would determine that. At the core of into the region, as indigenous growth rates the Kurds are equally complex. In the last the changes that we have been seeing is the and savings rates are bound to be low for

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some time. If the world had found a way to economic agenda and garner public support alternative paths cannot be contained, they channel capital into the region while grad- at least from one side of the polarized soci- lead to internal turmoil, erosion of internal ually improving the local business envi- ety. If they cannot close the expectations gap security, and, possibly, the erosion of inter- ronment, these two dynamics could have because they do not have the financial/eco- state security. reinforced each other and I think we could nomic wherewithal to do so, politically there So, yes, I feel this decade is turning out have managed the gap peacefully. Alter- aren’t really many other viable alternatives. to be a decade of insecurity. Of course, one natively or in parallel, we could have also The scenario of offsetting or substituting the needs to calibrate this framework for differ- ent countries. In places where sectarianism was already deeply ingrained, like Syria or The transition from U.S. engagement in global affairs Iraq, you start with a different basis. There to U.S. selective engagement in global affairs will not it is a short step to instability if you don’t manage the whole process well. In places be easy. We have entered a phase where the United like Egypt and Tunisia, the fluctuations of States and the rest of the world will have to develop instability can be contained for some time but not forever. This is where we are now. and crystallize an understanding of that separation Where was Turkey in all this? I have heard the Turkish minister of foreign affairs and, therefore, the U.S. role in the world. many times clearly articulating a regional development vision, which was aspirational sought ways to manage the expectation side economic gap with magnified identity pol- and sincere. The economic vision for Tur- of the gap by providing a long-term road- itics is arguably what we observed in Egypt key’s regional politics in the last decade has map that could smooth out and moderate after the 2012 presidential election. been about ensuring stability and increasing the intensity of the demands over a longer But the path of identity politics is dif- trade with our neighbors. Turkey’s growth horizon. That would have removed some of ficult to sustain because the social frus- model benefited from the stability in the the pressure. tration with the unresolved economic region, which helped our exports and our Early on, there were some encouraging expectation-delivery gap is compounded economic growth during a time of crisis in signals from senior figures in D.C. in the by the disappointment of social segments our traditional export markets. direction of injecting capital. Unfortunately, that fall on the wrong side of identity pol- When the revolts began in the region, that did not materialize. And the Deau- itics. That leaves a third alternative for the Turkish hope was that these countries ville process, through which the Western managing the gap, the more brutal one of would be integrated into the world econ- governments and some regional countries simply suppressing it through renewed omy through democratic structures and that could inject capital into these economies, authoritarianism, which is the traditional Turkey would take an active part in the pro- did not deliver very much. approach in the region. cess. Implicit in that belief was the assump- Since the expectation-delivery gap is not The problem with identity politics or tion that our Western partners would not let being narrowed, the internal social and authoritarianism is that they do not appear the region slide into the state it is in today. political dynamics of these countries will to be stable if we assume that the height- One can argue that was a high stakes inevitably dictate their own outcomes. One ened demands of the society are there to gamble or an unrealistic assessment. When alternative is for the political leadership to last. Once the social demand is there, one the region took a turn toward sectarianism, change the agenda from a focus on economic might be able to play for time through iden- authoritarianism, and instability, Turkey concerns to a focus on polarizing identity tity politics or by suppressing the public’s was caught somewhat off guard. Arguably, politics, which can be an equally potent demand. At some point, however, it catches everyone was hoping that somebody else social/political force. By magnifying identity up with you. What is more, the two solu- would pick up the tab, so probably we were polarization and the associated demands that tions of identity politics and authoritarian- all caught off guard when nobody in the come with it–through religion, sectarian- ism create and deepen fractures that make end did. In any event, Turkish foreign pol- ism, and ethnicity–political leadership can the original problem even more intractable. icy has been trying to manage the slide into shift the attention away from the impossible Eventually, if the consequences of these two unknown territory.

32 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 middle east regional security challenges

The republic’s traditional foreign policy Can we get back on track? I suspect that tized, the implications of the shift need to has been to keep a healthy distance from the expectations of the population are be considered. Middle Eastern affairs, and the current today being reconsidered, recalculated, The problem with focusing on contour government has been criticized for diverg- and reduced as the societies live through issues and letting go of the regional and ing from that position in some circles. My this horrible turmoil. So if and when the the local is that the distinction between the reading is that it was an error in calibrating region and the world are ready to take on sets is not clear. This situation was amply the model I just outlined. Decision-makers a strategy of integrating these economies, demonstrated by the chemical weapons hoped the region would rapidly move onto the process will probably start with low- problem in Syria. For a while we thought the benign development trajectory. In hind- ered expectations. Syria could be formulated as a regional sight, the likelihood that the good outcome issue. When chemical weapons came into would prevail was probably always lower The U.S. Role the picture, it became a global contour issue. than what most of us thought or hoped. Moreover, actors who wish to gain U.S. The region is now fluctuating between It is widely accepted and expected that the support or who want to bring the United identity politics and authoritarianism. In United States will rationalize its global States into the game have all the incentives some countries the situation has moved engagements. Normally these decisions to blur the distinction. So the transition beyond this and turned into a true security are cyclical and can easily be reversed with from U.S. engagement in global affairs to crisis. In others, the fluctuation continues. a new administration. That could be true U.S. selective engagement in global affairs But why did the development trajectory fail here as well. But the changes this time seem will not be easy. We have entered a phase in the first place and can it be rescued? to be a bit more structural and permanent, where the United States and the rest of the For starters, the expectation/delivery driven by political and economic priorities world will have to develop and crystallize gap was probably unrealistically high from and constraints. an understanding of that separation and, therefore, the U.S. role in the world. This phase will involve uncertainty and the con- The geometry of trade interdependence is an fusion, disagreements, and disputes that go important element that will shape Turkey’s thinking along with it. This dynamic is already playing itself and thus the long-term stabilization of the region out in the Middle East. Certain parts of the and its integration with the world. region embed so much uncertainty as it is that the incremental uncertainty introduced by the changing U.S. role may be simply too the outset, reflecting years of frustrated The implications of this shift are still not much to bear. This is true for the Persian expectations. Reducing the gap through clear, and I think it will take time before we Gulf and for Mashriq. economic growth would require very high all adjust to its ramifications. The prioriti­ Of course, as a Turk my threat percep- levels of capital, which were not forthcom- zation will probably require a separation of tions may be conditioned to view the ing at a time of European and American global security challenges between issues existing uncertainty as intolerably high financial constraints. that relate to the workings of the global in the region. And it may be the case that For Egypt and Tunisia, the Western actors order and issues of a more regional nature. unless the United States tolerates these arguably made a political miscalculation. The global threats, which I will call the con- regional turmoils, it may never move to a Political leaders explicitly or implicitly tour agenda, will almost certainly continue new regional disengagement mode. This is decided that the wiser course was to wait for to receive the attention of the United States. precisely why it will be an uncertain period these societies to stabilize before embarking On the other hand, the odds are that the in everybody’s security and foreign policy on any investment. The problem is that the United States will gradually try to extricate calculations. This ambiguity is one of the gap was real, intense, and impatient. We itself from the regional/local conflicts. key trends underlying the current picture; did not have the luxury of waiting. Social If the change is indeed structural and it shapes the sectarian calculations, and it dynamics would find other less than ideal U.S. engagement in the world continues to shapes national security calculations and ways to deal with the gap and they did. be consolidated, rationalized, and priori- actions.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 33 presentations

If the United States successfully extricates in the last decade, with exports increasing The other element of economic geom- itself and limits itself to contour impera- from around 10 percent to nearly 30 percent etry is energy. Turkey depends on Russia tives, we will still need pillars of stability to of all Turkish exports. However, in recent and Iran for 80 percent of its liquid natu- anchor the region. Turkey, like everybody months, exports have come down and, ral gas (lng) supplies. These supplies are else, is struggling with the change in the U.S. given the volatility, may continue to decline. not substitutable, because they are pipe- role and the new demands that this shift will Nonetheless, the rapid shift toward the line delivered and there is not sufficient place on others. The Syrian situation, where region has created increased Turkish aspi- lng redundancy for us to be able to drop Turkey expected and desired stronger U.S. rations and economic expectations. Our or replace one supplier with another. That engagement, is to some degree a reflection imagination for future economic growth is interdependence also constrains Turkey’s of that struggle. In Iraq, the U.S. withdrawal much more tied to the region than before. outlook and unavoidably shapes reflexes has created a context where balancing the Fifteen years ago our aspirations were pre- vis-à-vis the region. relations with the central government and dominantly tied to the European market. If Turkey is to play a role in the stabiliza- the Kurdistan Regional Government (krg) Though that market is still our largest mar- tion of this area and its economic progress, has become more relevant and complex. ket, it has decreased as a relative percentage how we formulate its trade orientation and The bottom line is that the reformulation of overall Turkish exports. energy dependence will be critically import- of U.S. engagement appears to be a real pro- On the upside, this rebalancing has ant. From a strategic perspective, I think for cess, which is creating incremental uncer- served Turkey well after the global recession Turkey to become a key actor in stabilizing tainty in the region. Either we assume that because it has allowed it to diversify away and integrating this region with the world, this is a transition cost to a new equilibrium, from Europe. As a result, the stability of the Turkey has to be less regionally situated and which will be painful, or we decide that the region has become not only a political prior- more globally oriented. Middle East cannot sustain this extra tran- sition burden and that the resulting fracture and conflicts will inevitably turn into a con- If we want Turkey to have a substantive role in tour issue for the United States. If it is the stabilizing and integrating this region with the world, latter, the rationalization of the U.S. role in the Middle East may have to be postponed. it has to be free from regionally constrained hopes My hope is that the debate about U.S. and concerns. A globally oriented Turkey will have engagement in or extrication from the region will be undertaken candidly with a much calmer and much freer hand in dealing with its allies rather than presented as a friendly fait accompli. We need to sit down and the problems of the region. talk about it clearly. This is not happening. Transactional and immediate issues are tak- ity for Turkey but a structural and economic If Turkish economic aspirations are ing precedence over the broader debate. priority. If 30 percent of your exports go to shaped by an export portfolio and, more the region, you want the region to be stable. broadly, an economic structure that are The Turkish Role The downside is that this growing eco- not regionally focused but instead globally nomic link also constrains and compli- diverse, Turkish incentives and instincts If the U.S. role in the region will be rational- cates Turkey’s political decisions vis-à-vis toward the global commons will be shaped ized and if Turkey is potentially one of the the region. Reliance on the region for our accordingly. Similarly, if Turkey moves key anchors of the trajectory toward inte- exports, for our economic aspirations, inev- from being an energy corridor to becoming grating the region with the world, we have itably impacts our political calculations. a key node in the global energy network, it to take a realistic assessment of what Tur- Therefore, the geometry of trade interde- will inescapably become one of the strong key can do, what it actually does, and what pendence is an important element that will advocates and custodians of global security. it represents. shape Turkey’s thinking and thus the long- A globally motivated and equipped Turkey Turkey’s economy has a regional bias. term stabilization of the region and its inte- will be more free and capable of integrating Trade with the region has grown rapidly gration with the world. the region with the world.

34 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 middle east regional security challenges

If Turkey is to play a role in the stabilization of this area and its economic progress, how we formulate its trade orientation and energy dependence will be critically important.

When thinking about Turkey’s role in At the Global Relations Forum, we hope and outlook for the region, one could con- to begin a discussion with our friends in the ceivably argue that it would be better to United States, Europe, and Asia about the maintain and deepen the current geometry future of the region. I anticipate that the of symmetric interdependence between next time we meet I will have more to say on Turkey and the region to ensure Turkey’s how we can get out of this quagmire. Even sustained engagement with the region. But better, I hope I can say that the quagmire is after watching how the internal and external behind us and that the region is on the path dynamics have unfolded as Turkey entan- to economic salvation. I am afraid though gles itself with the region, I don’t think this the latter is still quite a few years away. n alternative will serve the purpose. Regional dependence simply constrains, distorts, and © 2014 by Memduh Karakullukçu burdens the Turkish outlook. A geometry where Turkey’s orientation and economic stakes are global is likely to serve as a much more effective framework for the region’s stabilization and economic integration with the world. A regional actor that is structurally drawn into the intractable regional tensions and calculations can hardly serve as a force for constructive change.

Conclusion The demand for better life standards in the region seems to be the new reality in the Middle East. Turkey has a positive regional vision for the Middle East but was caught off guard after it, along with others, misjudged the timing and uncertainty of changing U.S. engagement and the evolution of the crises. If we want Turkey to have a substan- tive role in stabilizing and integrating this region with the world, it has to be free from regionally constrained hopes and concerns. A globally oriented Turkey will have a much calmer and much freer hand in dealing with the problems of the region.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 35 projects

Science Policy Initiative on Science, Engineering, and Technology

The Initiative on Science, Engineering, and Technology provides a framework for the Academy’s many projects about science and technology policy and the adaptation of science and technology in society.

Recent Academy projects have examined scientific literacy, the treatment of scientific topics in the university curricula, the evo- lution of the Internet and its influence on social norms and institutions, and public trust in vaccines. The Academy’s ongoing arise ii project–Advancing Research in Science and Engineering: The Role of Aca- demia, Industry, and Government in the Neal Lane 21st Century–seeks to foster new relation- Neal Lane is Malcolm Gillis University Professor ships across the disciplines and between the at Rice University. He also holds appointments private and public sectors to sustain a com- as Senior Fellow at the James A. Baker III Insti- petitive U.S. research enterprise. I would like to welcome Venkatesh Narayanamurti tute for Public Policy and in the Department of to speak about arise ii, which he cochairs Physics and Astronomy. He serves as Cochair with Keith Yamamoto. of the Academy’s Initiative for Science, Engi- neering, and Technology and as Cochair of the Academy’s project on New Models for U.S. Science and Technology Policy. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy in 1994.

he American Academy has been con- Tcerned about the pursuit of scientific knowledge since the very foundation of the organization. Today, the Academy’s Ini- tiative on Science, Engineering, and Tech- nology, which I chair with Charles Vest,† former President of mit and of the National Academy of Engineering, provides a frame- work for the Academy’s many projects about science and technology policy and the adaptation of science and technology in society.

† The Academy mourns the passing of Charles Vest (September 9, 1941–December 12, 2013).

36 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014

ARISE II

tors, reflecting the perceived value of youth- eral other important arguments in his report, ful input in a field where the average age of including that societal well-being was closely investigators has been steadily rising. related to the nih, and that the development When the arise ii executive committee of manpower and of the education system met to discuss the next set of challenges, were important roles for the federal govern- they concluded that there were many ment to play in the economic and technologi- issues for which the interplay of the phys- cal development of the nation. And of course, ical sciences, biological sciences, engineer- the National Science Foundation (nsf) owes ing, computation, and medicine could be its very origins to the Vannevar Bush report. instructive. Therefore, to learn from each The report has served this country well in other’s disciplines and to see what new many ways, helping to establish the contin- connections could be formed, our com- uum of discovery and application; but it is mittee drew its members from these many time now that we look again at how the scien- and diverse fields, producing a far-reaching tific disciplines are faring, and at what more and stimulating debate about what actually can be done to support their advancement. were the major problems arise ii ought to On the economic front, increased global address. Together, we looked to the origins competition has caused profound changes, Venkatesh Narayanamurti The two overarching goals of ARISE II are to move Venkatesh Narayanamurti is Director of the Sci- ence, Technology, and Public Policy Program at from interdisciplinary to transdisciplinary research; the Belfer Center for Science and International and to develop new policies and networks that Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also the Benjamin Peirce Professor of Technol- bridge the divide between basic research and ogy and Public Policy and a Professor of Physics application, promoting cooperative, synergistic at Harvard University. He is Codirector of the Academy’s ARISE II project. He was elected a interactions among the academic, government, Fellow of the American Academy in 2007 and and private sectors throughout the discovery and serves as a member of the Academy’s Board of Directors and Council. development process.

he Academy’s arise i project, which of the physical sciences, biological sciences, especially in the physical sciences and Tpublished its report in 2008, was quite and engineering and we traced that history engineering. The end of the Cold War, the important in two respects: it identified to the present day, and we concluded that decrease in the emphasis on national secu- high-risk, high-reward research as a critical research now is at an inflection point. rity, and the increase in economic competi- element of advancing America’s research The physical sciences and engineering tion have led to a new era of globalization. enterprise; and it argued for the support became prominent in the national scene, But these events also signaled that the phys- and funding of early-career investiga- especially with federal agencies, in response ical sciences and engineering, condensed tors. In fact, partly as an outgrowth of the to the great challenges of World War II. The matter physics and engineering especially, arise i report, the National Institutes of Vannevar Bush report, Science, the Endless were closely aligned because of work driven Health (nih) launched the nih Director’s Frontier, which called for an expansion of by World War II and conducted in the indus- Pioneer Awards to support high-risk, high- governmental support for the sciences, was trial laboratories that were then icons of the reward biomedical and behavioral research. critical in drawing a connection between surging fields. Bell Labs, ibm, Xerox parc– Meanwhile, the Department of Energy has the physical sciences and engineering and these companies no longer perform the level increasingly tried to fund young investiga- national security. Vannevar Bush made sev- of research that we as a nation require.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 37 projects

The life sciences had a slightly different material science and condensed matter phys- which began with the efforts of a molecular origin. The pharmaceutical industry actu- ics, was inherently always interdisciplinary– biologist and have since brought together ally evolved out of chemistry and mechan- we are also searching now for a fundamental the nih, the Defense Advanced Research ical engineering; but historically, there has union between the disciplines–especially Projects Agency, and nsf, in the process been very little connection between basic across the physical and life sciences. That’s hybridizing the operational structure of research in biology and the pharmaceutical why we coined the word transdisciplinary. each organization. industry. The pharmaceutical industry is Interdisciplinary implies preexisting space The alliance between academia and simply not doing the long-term work nec- between disciplines, while we are exploring industry is a major focus of arise ii’s rec- essary for broad discovery and invention. a deeper connection between the fields of ommendations, which seek to enhance the There are, of course, counter-examples with research. And so we defined our two over­ permeability between the two at all career biotechnology companies such as Genen- arching goals: to move from interdisci- stages, and to develop policies that focus on tech, but nevertheless, there has been an plinary to transdisciplinary research; and the shared interests of academia and indus- established culture where the discovery is to develop new policies and networks that try. We believe industry must change in disconnected from its applications. bridge the divide between basic research and significant ways and must be willing to par- Computation has become an important application, promoting cooperative, syner- ticipate in research as a partner, or to con- branch of science and engineering. In fact, gistic interactions among the academic, gov- tribute some of the major funding, as has much of the recent progress in biology is ernment, and private sectors throughout the been the case in the Human Genome Con- due to biologists having become much more discovery and development process. sortium. Of course, with transdisciplinary quantitative, increasing their ability to pro- Within these goals is a series of recom- and integrative research there are intel- cess the big data the field produces. Sim- mendations. As one example, we recom- lectual property issues, though these have ilarly, biology has profoundly influenced mend support for shared central research often been overemphasized. In some cases, engineering, leading to the introduction of facilities that can bring different groups especially in research targeting long-term synthesized, biologically inspired materials. of researchers and different methods of and far-reaching problems, intellectual Both developments suggest the many ways organization together. And with such core property, or creating profits for a university that the physical sciences, biology, med- research facilities, we recommend the fund- or industry, should not be the driving force; icine, computation, and engineering can ing of stable staff appointments to direct rather, the intellectual exchange, resource learn and benefit from each other. them. Such physical common ground can exchange, the growth of knowledge, and In light of this, our committee identified serve as a unifying force for these disci- the benefit to society is of principal impor- two overarching goals and eleven recom- plines. There is no one solution to unifying tance. And in this vein, arise ii has made mendations that strive for new models of the fields and creating shared stakeholder recommendations and encouraged bold integration, cooperation, and coordina- interests, but we have developed a collec- experimentation for industry, academia, tion across two intersecting planes. You tion of such recommendations that together government, and funding agencies. I think can think about the disciplines of physics, can form a deeper integration. that the arise ii report, along with other chemistry, engineering, medicine, biology, And of course, we feel that this is both a reports of the American Academy and the and computation as one axis, and the stake- bottom-up and a top-down enterprise. For President’s Council of Advisors on Science holders–industry, government, and aca- example, deans and provosts of universi- and Technology, will help build enough demia–as the other axis. Of course, these ties must provide the resources, as well as momentum in these extremely important fields and sectors are intertwined in many act as the conductors to actually facilitate areas to ensure a bright future for science complex ways, but the arise ii committee departmental integration. Grand chal- and engineering in the United States. sought to rethink these two axes and make lenges, meanwhile, represent bottom-up certain recommendations that may lead to action, beginning with researchers identi- a deeper union both between the stakehold- fying the compelling and timely problems ers and between the academic disciplines. that stand at the frontier of knowledge. And even though interdisciplinary and Such was the case with President Obama’s multidisciplinary research has been dis- brain Initiative (Brain Research through cussed for many years–the field I come from, Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies),

38 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014

New Models for U.S. Science & Technology Policy

in the world of public policy–to see if there research, and academic researchers and might be a better way forward. Our first their students make discoveries and invent thought was, why not reorganize govern- technologies, the results of which are made ment? Well, some of us are not going to be public through peer-reviewed journals. around long enough to see that happen, and Private industry takes it from there, and I think we have plenty of data to show that through the technological and business if you do indeed reorganize government, it’s innovation of many forward-looking com- likely to go badly. So we are looking else- panies the fruits of research are made avail- where. Our goal is to explore new mecha- able to the American people. The agreement nisms–models–that can raise the national has worked quite well for half a century; but profile of science and technology; promote much has changed in that period of time long-term s&t policy considerations and and many of us have begun to question how planning; and help the American people well this system serves us today. better understand the importance of invest- In 1993, I went to Washington, D.C., as ments in s&t, research in particular. With- a new Director to the National Science out the public’s awareness and support, Foundation (nsf), and began to make the U.S. science and technology is likely to stay rounds of Washington to introduce myself “in the weeds,” mixed in with all the other and talk about the Foundation. Many peo- Neal Lane policy matters that vie for public attention ple on Capitol Hill thought the nsf was

he focus of the Academy’s project on The goal of this project is to explore new mecha- TNew Models for U.S. Science & Tech- nology Policy–which I cochair with Norm nisms – models – that can raise the national profile Augustine, retired Chairman and ceo of Lockheed Martin and former Undersec- of science and technology; promote long-term S&T retary of the Army–is the need, in this policy considerations and planning; and help the country, for more long-range thinking and planning in many areas of science and American people better understand the importance technology (s&t) policy. This project joins S&T a collection of important studies by the of investments in , research in particular. American Academy, the National Acad- emies, and other think tanks around the and political support. While many of these that place with the Einstein statue outside. country that have taken on various aspects other issues are important, it is our view I mean, I love the place with the Einstein of s&t policy. These studies have produced that advances in science and technology are statue, but it is really not part of the fed- reports containing thoughtful recommen- vital to the nation’s ability to deal with most eral government. Fortunately, there were dations, which stand as the product of the of its other needs and, thus, warrant special knowledgeable champions of science on enormous intellectual resources of all of attention. Moreover, since research discov- the Hill who explained to me that there is a you who are involved in these issues. But eries do not usually pay off right away, it big disconnect: “First of all, the public is not the response to these projects on the part of takes patient investments over time to bear hearing from you scientists. We in Congress the policy-making apparatus, largely at the fruit–and that is not today’s mindset. are not hearing from you very much either. federal level, has been disappointing. As Venky has already noted, at the end And we are definitely not hearing from our The New Models project is bringing of World War II, the Vannevar Bush report, constituents that they care a lot about these together experienced researchers, former Science, the Endless Frontier, spawned a part- issues. You guys need to straighten this out.” university presidents, industrial leaders, nership–a kind of agreement between This stark message got my attention. I then and former members of Congress and fed- the federal government and the universi- remembered that former Congressman eral officials–all of whom have experience ties–whereby taxpayer money pays for George Brown had told us much the same

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 39 projects

thing over thirty years ago; but at the time time this spring, is only the first step. The we thought, “George is a friend, but maybe next step is to expand these conversations he doesn’t quite get it.” Well, he did get it: and the ownership of the ideas. he saw the problems coming long before the We will likely frame the report around the Gingrich revolution, which was not neces- theme of restoring the American Dream. We sarily helpful for science and technology, at used to hear quite a lot about that dream– least research funding. our parents lived it, and many of us did as Today, the nation’s federal govern- well. I don’t think we hear much about the ment-university partnership has changed, as American dream anymore, and we should industry has steadily increased its funding of worry about that. Given that science and r&d–though much more D than R–and its technology are central to future U.S. indus- collaboration with universities. Our view, at tries, jobs, and the well-being of all Ameri- least my view, is that going forward, the role cans, it is worth explaining the connection. of industry will be increasingly important, Research is only part of the picture, but it is both through enhanced cooperation with a critical front-end part. No research means universities and by voicing stronger support no science and technology, hence, no prog- for federal funding of university research. ress as a society. We hope we can make a Otherwise, it is hard to imagine how we can difference. As with all American Academy steer this American s&t ship in a more posi- projects, we strongly encourage you to sup- tive direction. The arise ii report obviously port what we are doing, share your ideas, represents an important step. These are large, and participate in whatever way you wish. complex issues that Venky’s arise ii com- mittee took on. Our job with the New Mod- els initiative is to find a way to ensure that the recommendations of arise ii and arise i, as well as the important reports coming out of the National Academies’ National Research Council, the National Science Board, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and other orga- nizations keep the drumbeat going so that we can move the nation’s s&t policies and policy-making apparatus toward necessary change. Do we now know what the better way is? Well, frankly, no. But we are having a good discussion about it and we have some big ideas on the table. I can’t be sure which ideas will see the light of day in our final report, but at least we are having an adult conversation about important matters. Our study group has met twice to discuss how to put these ideas into practice. We have held several conference calls and made individ- ual calls on the periphery. Norm and I both agree that publication of the report, some-

40 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014

Security and Energy Committee on International Security Studies

The Committee on International Security Studies is setting its agenda for the future, and we are interested in launching projects that address residual nuclear risks, the ethical dimensions of the use of force, and emerging security threats, including cyber security.

hear about a couple of the projects that we our Soviet friends was not exactly conge- have undertaken in the recent past. nial, but over the course of a decade, they In the summer of 1960, the American came to be converted to this set of ideas. Academy convened a study group on the The taproot was the proposition that subject of arms control, which was a novel even the most bitter enemies, even the most concept at the time. Not even theoretically deeply hostile adversaries in the nuclear conceived, much less politically or policy- era shared a common interest in avoiding relevant, this study group evolved into nuclear war. And that this shared inter- Steven E. Miller something that came to be known in the est could best be pursued in the context of Steven E. Miller is Director of the International intellectual history of the field as the Har- negotiated management of the rivalry and Security Program at the Belfer Center for Sci- vard-mit Study Group on Arms Control, arms race, through which both sides could ence and International Affairs at the Harvard which was institutionalized at the Acad- be more secure and the nuclear balance emy. The group produced a special issue of could be more stable with less expenditure Kennedy School. He serves as Cochair of the the Academy’s journal, Dædalus, which was of resources than would otherwise have Academy’s Committee on International Secu- subsequently published as an edited vol- been the case. By 1972, we had our first major rity Studies and as Codirector of the Academy’s ume called Arms Control, Disarmament, and arms control agreement between the Soviet Global Nuclear Future Initiative. He was elected National Security. This is now regarded as the Union and the United States, and that ini- a Fellow of the American Academy in 2006 and so-called bible of arms control. The group tiated a long era of arms control between serves as a member of the Academy’s Council. also sponsored the work that led to the sin- these two great rivals, which in fact consti- gle most famous conceptual study of arms tuted the core of Soviet-American relations et me first offer congratulations to the control, a little book called Strategy and Arms over the better part of a quarter of a century. L new members of the American Acad- Control, by Nobel laureate Thomas Schell- The work that was done at the Academy can emy. I can personally attest to the fact that ing and his then-graduate student Morton accurately be described as world-changing. if you let yourself be drawn into the work Halperin. Well, this group came to be institutional- of the Academy, it can become a significant This work was absolutely formative, both ized. By 1963, there was a committee within and gratifying strand in your professional in developing the concept of arms control the Academy. It has existed continuously portfolio. What you have in front of you is and in promulgating it credibly into the pol- ever since. In 1982, it came to take its cur- a potentially life-altering opportunity. For icy debate. In fact, in December 1960, there rent form and name, the Committee on me, over the last decade, a large fraction was a meeting in Moscow, something that in International Security Studies. We have just of my personal research agenda has run those days was so unusual as to be unprec- passed our thirtieth anniversary. From one through the American Academy, and I am edented, at which the Dædalus volumes on decade to the next, we have tried to tackle very much the better for it. My role here is arms control were actually briefed to Soviet what we view as some of the biggest chal- first to give you a thumbnail sketch of the colleagues. It is often said that arms con- lenges on which we have some comparative Committee on International Security Stud- trol is an unnatural act in the sense that it advantage and where we believe we could ies, of which I am privileged to be cochair. involves a kind of security cooperation with contribute to the national debate. In the And then we will turn to our colleagues to your bitter enemy. So, the initial reaction of 1980s, the Academy was a major player in

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 41 projects

The Global Nuclear Future the so-called Star Wars Debate on missile States by command of another state? In its defense, catalyzed by President Reagan’s far-flung interventions and global polic- missile defense initiative. In the 1990s, the ing activities (for example, in the struggle Academy sponsored a strong strand of work to combat international terrorism), the on the questions of sovereignty and inter- United States sometimes believes it neces- vention, triggered in part by the protracted sary to take steps that in many contexts are crisis in the Balkans and whether or not we regarded as lawless. Can the United States should intervene there. break the rules in order to enforce a rules- In the last decade, we sponsored work based system? What are the ethical dimen- looking at how to order what was called sions of that? the post-Soviet space. The collapse of the We also are eager to look at emerging Soviet Union created a vast, unsettled reach security threats, and there is substantial in much of Central Eurasia–how were we to interest in the committee in developing a think about preserving security and avoid- project on cyber security, which is one of ing conflict in that part of the world? John the new areas that has become very fashion- Steinbruner, my cochair of the committee, able in the security realm. Here again, the did a wonderful project on the governance United States plays a special role: so far, it is of the military use of space that was very the leading practitioner of the known cyber influential in shaping how people think attacks. So here we are again, at the cutting Robert Rosner about these management issues. edge of creating precedents and establishing Robert Rosner is the William E. Wrather Dis- The committee has met over the last few norms that, if directed against us, we may tinguished Service Professor in the Departments days and we are beginning to set our agenda not find so appetizing. of Astronomy & Astrophysics and Physics at the for the future, drawing from a number of Recently, the major project that the com- University of Chicago. He is also on the faculty exciting possibilities. We are interested in mittee has sponsored in the security area of the Enrico Fermi Institute and the Harris addressing what we would describe as resid- has been known as the Global Nuclear School of Public Policy Studies. He is Senior ual nuclear risks. Begin with the remarkable Future project. It is now five years old; and Advisor to the Academy’s Global Nuclear Future fact that almost a quarter of a century after I’m heavily involved in it, along with my the fall of the Soviet Union, many of the colleague, Bob Rosner, professor of physics Initiative. He was elected a Fellow of the Ameri- features, attributes, and embedded risks and astrophysics at the University of Chi- can Academy in 2001 and serves as a member of associated with Cold War nuclear postures cago and former director of the Argonne the Academy’s Council. still exist, still have not been disentangled, National Laboratory. Bob is next going to still have not been eliminated, and worse, describe what we have been up to in the he aim of the Global Nuclear Future have completely dropped off of the policy Global Nuclear Future project. Tproject is very simply stated: to explore agenda. There is no interest or enthusiasm methods to ensure the safe, secure, and for these subjects at all. sustainable management of the global Our committee has substantial enthusi- expansion of nuclear power. The project asm for launching a project on the ethical has drawn from a broad range of U.S. and dimensions of the use of force in this new international scholars, spanning across era that we are entering. There are all kinds disciplines as varied as international secu- of new questions arising. In recent years, for rity, public policy, and physics. And Steve example, the United States has arrogated to is being modest–he is the codirector of the itself the right to identify and assassinate by project with Scott Sagan of Stanford. I serve drone attack anyone it regards as an enemy. as a technical advisor. The project has been One by one, person by person. Is this a norm funded largely by the John D. and Cather- we would find acceptable if this proposition ine T. MacArthur Foundation, the William were directed against citizens of the United and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Alfred P.

42 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014

Can we influence the nuclear policy-building pro- tering academic cooperation and promoting inter-state intellectual exchanges. It is not cesses of nuclear newcomers, and of other relevant only our voice being broadcast. regional stakeholders, to ensure that future national The project started with a two-volume issue of Dædalus. That is actually how I got and regional nuclear policies conform to interna- roped into this project, and it’s a very effec- tional best practices and treaties on nuclear safety, tive tool, I must say. That two-volume series of essays was quite definitive in laying out security, and non-proliferation? the various aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle and its surrounding issues, and it was not Sloan Foundation, and Carnegie Corpora- sure that nuclear power usage ultimately simply singing from one sheet. Contribu- tion of New York. does conform to international standards? tors spanned the full range of expertise from We have focused primarily on the Middle That is at the heart of the issue. Right up around the world–from the nuclear industry, East and Southeast Asia because they are the front you have to admit that the time has nuclear engineering, academia, and the world regions where most of the current interest long passed where we, as Americans, can of diplomacy–and their voices represented in expanding nuclear power is today. More lecture other people, if such a time ever anti-nuclear and pro-nuclear perspectives. specifically, we have focused on countries existed. The question therefore is, as a prac- The two volumes served as a grand debate for that are actively engaged in thinking about tical matter, how do we engage in these the entire subject of nuclear power. becoming nuclear. They are not currently discussions without seeming to instruct or Beyond the Dædalus volumes, the Global nuclear states; they want to be. The clas- condescend from the outside? Nuclear Future project has focused on two sic examples of countries pursuing peace- Our aim has been to arrive at solutions large areas: the current and future status of ful nuclear energy programs would be the collaboratively, with the active involvement the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty given United Arab Emirates–in particular, Abu of all principal stakeholders. We have pur- the expansion of global nuclear power, and Dhabi–and Vietnam. The question is, how sued this goal by engaging in an open dis- also how the combination of nuclear techno- do they introduce nuclear power in these cussion with these stakeholders in which we logical innovations and new business model areas in a way that is safe and secure, given are simply equals. And in these discussions concepts can lower the risks involved with the that their domestic human and technical we focus not only on the desirable end- spread of nuclear power. For example, how do infrastructure is typically not appropriate states, the secure nuclear-powered nirvana you prevent incidents such as Fukushima? In for nuclear power? How do they actually where we would like to be, but also on how that case, we have gone to Japan to discuss go about becoming nuclear, and how do you actually get there given both the politi- with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency how they do it in a way that inspires some sense cal and financial constraints. To help facil- they can deal with independent regulation of of confidence in the rest of the world? And itate these discussions, we operate under the nuclear industry, something they had not how do these countries pursuing nuclear Chatham House Rule, and in response we done prior to Fukushima. energy programs impact and ultimately have found our discussion partners to be The project has published many publica- shape inter-state relations, regional nuclear engaged, frank, and focused on solutions. tions: Shared Responsibilities for Nuclear Dis- governance processes, and the global So what have we actually done? We have armament: A Global Debate, by Scott Sagan; nuclear order more broadly? convened regional conferences, typically Nuclear Collisions: Discord, Reform and the The obvious question for us is: can we outside the United States, involving key Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime, by Steven influence the nuclear policy-building pro- stakeholders, including participants from Miller; The Back-End of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: cesses of these nuclear newcomers, and industry, government, and involved ngos. An Innovative Storage Concept, by Stephen of other relevant regional stakeholders, to In the United States, we have hosted policy Goldberg, Robert Rosner, and James Malone; ensure that future national and regional briefings with government officials and Nuclear Reactors: Generation to Generation, by nuclear policies conform to international representatives of the international nuclear Stephen Goldberg and Robert Rosner; and best practices and treaties on nuclear safety, industry. And being largely academics, we Lessons Learned from “Lessons Learned”: The security, and non-proliferation? How do we have also commissioned papers and vol- Evolution of Nuclear Power Safety After Acci- speak to the relevant stakeholders, making umes coauthored by regional experts, fos- dents and Near Accidents, by Ed Blandford and

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 43 projects

The Alternative Energy Future

Michael May. You can infer from the titles tutions and policy instruments that govern the span of our interests. We have also been the energy system have to change alongside involved in the preparatory conferences to the energy transition. My cochair, Maxine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty negoti- Savitz, is going to talk about the first, and I ations, and we have had regional workshops will talk about the second. in the places where nuclear power is being actively discussed, including Abu Dhabi, Sin- gapore, Hanoi, Tokyo, and Hiroshima. And I confess, it has all been both a lot of fun and extremely interesting. Where are we heading? In 2014, we are going to have a wrap-up workshop in Indo- nesia in collaboration with the School of Advanced Diplomatic Study, Paramadina University of Indonesia. Symbolically, that wrap-up will represent a transition toward the “locals” actually beginning to take the lead. We are not fully there, but it is an encouraging direction for Southeast Asia. Robert W. Fri And in collaboration with the Center for Robert W. Fri is a Visiting Scholar and Senior Non-Proliferation Studies and the Middle Fellow Emeritus at Resources for the Future. He East Network on Nuclear Non-Proliferation is Cochair of the Academy’s Alternative Energy and Disarmament, we are also preparing to Future project. He was elected a Fellow of the run a one-week training workshop for jour- American Academy in 2010. nalists on nuclear-related issues, the aim of which is to make sure that journalists feel empowered to cover these subjects and to he interesting thing about the Acade- ensure transparency and accountability Tmy’s Alternative Energy Future proj- when talking about nuclear power. We can’t ect is that it is not about energy; it is about hold a useful public discussion if the partici- people and institutions. If you expect, as pants feel overwhelmed by the content. we do, that the physical energy system is Finally, we are looking at new studies, undergoing a major transition–chiefly to such as the regional impact of the Vietnam- decarbonize–then that process requires ese nuclear program. And we are looking major societal advancements in addition to at the present state and the evolution of the expected technological advancements. nuclear liability laws that concern how the Our present system of energy is closely spread of nuclear power can affect neigh- intertwined with how we function as a soci- boring states. That is a topic that has not ety, yet we know far less about the societal yet received much attention. Finally, we are consequences of the energy transition than thinking through the security risks posed by we do about the technology and economics “insiders.” These subjects may serve as the of this change. That is what our project is germs of new studies and new programs, investigating. perhaps even the next version of the Global We are proceeding along two lines. One Nuclear Future project. is applying the social sciences to accelerate and enable innovation in the energy sys- tem. The other is to understand how insti-

44 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014

The Alternative Energy Future

The work of the Alternative Energy Future project has shown us that the energy policy community and the social sciences community need to talk and work together, and policy-makers must have improved access to existing social science research on energy.

butions to our needs, but it has not yet now-Secretary of Energy and Academy reached its potential. Fellow Ernie Moniz. One of our recom- Recent studies by the National Research mendations was that the Department of Council, McKinsey, and Deutsche Bank Energy, with the National Science Foun- have identified enormous potential for fur- dation, should initiate a multidisciplinary ther improving the efficiency of energy use social science research program that will in the United States through a combination provide critical information and support of technology adoption and policy actions. for policy development that advances the Maxine L. Savitz Such a combination could reduce energy use diffusion of alternative energy technologies. Maxine L. Savitz is retired General Manager of from what we currently use by up to 30 per- The research program should fund experts Technology Partnerships at Honeywell, Inc. She cent by 2030 in all regions of the economy, from the physical sciences, engineering, currently serves as Vice President of the National and especially in buildings and in transpor- economics, sociology, public policy, inter- tation. But significant hurdles remain, many national relations, business, and the other Academy of Engineering and Vice Chair of the of which have little to do with the technol- disciplines. Questions requiring rigorous President’s Council of Advisors for Science and ogy and cost and performance, and much study include: how and why are advanced Technology. She is Cochair of the Academy’s more to do with the lack of understanding energy technologies, both on the demand Alternative Energy Future project. She was elected of how the technologies succeed, first in the and supply side, accepted or rejected by the a Fellow of the American Academy in 2013. marketplace and then in the hands of the consumers or suppliers? What are the bar- public. These challenges inspired the Alter- riers to adaptation and adoption? Will the his month marks the fortieth anni- native Energy Future workshops that we public accept a specific technology? What T versary of the Arab Oil Embargo, an held beginning three years ago. The work- market conditions are needed for technol- embargo that doubled oil prices in the shops included a number of participants ogy to compete? United States. Though gasoline was still from industry, including the head of Hon- After the report was issued, Bob and I well under a dollar per gallon, even with eywell’s Buildings Automatic Controls, who visited with Steven Koonin at the doe and the price increase, the embargo triggered reported that 80 percent of the people who Cora Marrett at nsf to discuss implement- fuel shortages and long lines at the gaso- buy a programmable thermostat, which ing this recommendation. That meeting line pumps. Moreover, it made us aware of is three or four times the cost of the little led to funding from both agencies for us what kind of energy we used to heat, cool, round ones, never use them. That incredi- to start the Academy’s Alternative Energy and light our buildings and offices; run our ble investment in dollars, technology, and Future study. Over the last three years, we factories; and move freight and ourselves. energy is going unused. have held several workshops, published two The efficient use of energy in buildings, In November 2010, the president’s issues of Dædalus, and authored the report industry, and transportation became one Council on Science and Technology issued Beyond Technology: Strengthening Energy Pol- of the solutions to these growing concerns. a report to the president on accelerating icy Through Social Science. This work has By efficient use of energy, I mean providing the pace of change in energy technol- shown us that the energy policy community the same service with less energy. Energy ogies through an integrated center for must recognize the value of social science, efficiency has since made major contri- energy policy. I cochaired that report with and social scientists must develop a better

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 45 projects

understanding of the needs of the policy tion to other staff in the Executive Office community. The two communities need to of the President, and there was agreement talk and work together, and policy-makers on the goal that this research coordination must have improved access to existing social network be used to design and test methods science research on energy and language to evaluate how effectively this research is that energy policy-makers can understand. being integrated into existing energy poli- Again, it is about communication. cies–sort of as test cases. Holdren encour- Collaboration between the two commu- aged our work, and we have gone on to talk nities should focus on and prioritize specific to Dave Danielson, Assistant Secretary of research and energy needs. With continu- doe for Efficiency and Renewables, who ous support from nsf, we held a workshop requested a two-page proposal and for us to in Washington, D.C., a year ago that brought meet with some of his staff. together investigators from government, But we have not limited our partners to academia, and industry to discuss novel the federal government; states have been approaches to understanding and overcom- active participants in these issues as well. ing some of these barriers, and to explore This summer, the New York State Energy the lessons learned. An additional objective Research and Development Authority of that workshop was to explore how the (nyserda) issued a solicitation for New goals could be reinforced through the cre- York State pilot projects involving engineer- ation of a research coordination network ing and social science, with awards totaling that would be composed of people who were $400,000. And we have been talking with being funded currently by both the doe and nyserda about holding a workshop with nsf, a group you could count on less than their grantees, along with federal grantees, two hands. So, we decided to work with to evaluate how these projects are going and seven projects that were underway. These to allow the grantees to communicate with included a project at Stanford, funded by each other. It has been a fascinating journey arpa-e, which was the only social science so far, and I want to thank John Randell and project funded out of 3,900 total project the staff at the Academy for their tremen- applications. The Energy Behavior Institute dous support throughout the whole thing. at the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy has twenty research projects underway, and two-thirds of the staff and researchers are social scientists. We have selected projects related to photo­ voltaics, for acceptance by both utilities and consumers. And the Climate Decision Mak- ing Center at Carnegie Mellon, funded by nsf, is studying the utilization of social sci- ence research on sustainability and energy. The work will be enriched by participation of a project from Columbia University, the Woodrow Wilson Fund, and Avista Corpo- ration, a utility in the Northwest that gets the deliverers of energy involved. We met with John Holdren and others at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, in addi-

46 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014

The Alternative Energy Future

If the transition in the physical system of energy is going to take decades, how do you create a policy framework that will stand up over time and continue to push the system in the direction that you want it to go?

Elinor Ostrom’s idea of a polycentric system contributing their research to these kinds of governance may be more appropriate for of issues, and who also want to ensure that the new energy system than the hierarchal policies and infrastructure support their system of government that we have today, innovations. There has been some public and another essay looked at the question interest in the project, too, with ideas from of larger-scale sustainability and what con- the project appearing in both The New York straints that puts on the energy transition. Times and on The Huffington Post. We are going Following this broad exploration, we to push ahead with these ideas, and there are decided to take one of these issues and dig now two main tasks in front of us. One is to Robert W. Fri into it more deeply. We chose policy dura- develop an actual follow-on research agenda bility and asked the following key question: on policy durability with some of the schol- s I mentioned, the second element of if this transition in the physical system of ars who attended the earlier workshop, and Athe Alternative Energy Future project energy is going to take decades, how do you to try to get that research funded. And the involves institutions and policy. The premise create a policy framework that will stand up other is to organize the symposium early next is that the existing institutions and policies in over time and continue to push the system year that we hope will bring together envi- place to operate and govern the energy system in the direction that you want it to go, but ronmental program officers of the Energy are built for today’s energy system, not for the that is also sufficiently adaptable and suffi- Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, system we would like to have thirty or fifty ciently capable of taking onboard and using the Sloan Foundation, and the Bullitt Foun- years from now. So what should those policy the vast amount of new information that will dation and encourage them to integrate the instruments and institutions look like? be developed over the period? An extraordi- tools of social science in their programs. In order to begin to get a grip on this nary group of scholars faced this question in We think these paths that we have been somewhat fuzzy question, we first tried to our Alternative Energy Future workshop held following have a future. We started the proj- describe the nature of the issues in more earlier this year, and we drafted a consensus ect with a simple premise, that the society detail in one of our issues of Dædalus. A statement. We agreed that despite the com- is going to be affected by the transition in number of authors contributed wonderful plexity of the problem, and the need for more physical energy systems, and exploring that articles exploring a variety of questions, research, we knew enough to list three or four premise has produced some very interesting such as in what institutional setting does the necessary conditions for policy durability and useful issues and opportunities. We have renewable energy industry flourish? (I will that are actionable by policy-makers today. been very pleased with the favorable recep- tell you, it has very little to do with whether So we have an immediate, actionable plan and tion we have received so far, and hope that renewable energy resources are anywhere we have troops on the ground to execute it, in the policy-writing and research continues in nearby.) Or how can you negotiate inter- addition to a conceptual research agenda. new communities, and that we may continue national arrangements for climate change Both of these approaches have resulted in to follow this trail to see where it leads. when you cannot achieve a grand bargain? a particularly good reception in virtually all In what ways do existing institutions hinder quarters. These issues resonate with policy- the effectiveness of economic incentives like makers, who worry about how to keep the cap and trade, which strives to change the show on the road. They also resonate with energy system? One essay also argued that a research community that is interested in

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 47 projects

Humanities, Education, and Social Policy Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences

try has stood upon. The letter then posed and security. Karl Eikenberry, former U.S. the question: what steps can federal, state, Ambassador to Afghanistan, retired U.S. and local government, universities, founda- Army Lieutenant General, and a member tions, educators, and others do to support of the Humanities Commission, has spoken the humanities in the United States? quite eloquently about the problems the The American Academy draws about military will face without citizens trained half of its membership from the academic in languages, cultural and regional studies, world, including administrators and col- history, and so forth. The intrinsic group, on lege presidents as well as highly respected the other hand, argues that the humanities faculty members. It is an extraordinary derive their value not from their measurable group of people possessing unprecedented economic or political output, but from their convening power. The Academy created its innate intellectual worth. Commission on the Humanities and Social The second axis concerns the issue Sciences and held three group meetings, of whether the Commission ought to followed by six regional meetings around focus on asking Congress for funding, or the country, to discuss the questions raised whether it ought to focus instead on tak- in the letter. The regional meetings were ing a moral stand about the importance of fascinating to me. While national educa- the humanities. Philip Bredesen tion policy discussions focus primarily on Our discussions resulted in the first report Philip Bredesen served as the 48th Governor of stem right now, we found there is actually of the Commission, published last June, The Tennessee from 2003 to 2011. He is a member of an enormous amount of interest in the sub- Heart of the Matter: The Humanities and Social the Academy’s Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Lincoln Project. He We need the humanities for our nation’s defense was elected a Fellow of the American Academy in 2012. and for the strength of the economy. We need the humanities to help produce the thoughtful and he Commission on the Humanities and critical-minded citizens that our democracy needs TSocial Sciences is much newer than the other projects you have heard about today, to thrive. And as individuals, we need the humanities but it is already creating a model for projects the Academy could pursue in the future. The to help us lead more fulfilling lives. genesis of the Commission was about two- and-a-half years ago, when two senators, ject of the humanities, with initiatives and Sciences for a Vibrant, Competitive, and Secure Lamar Alexander and Mark Warner, and activities flying just below the radar in many Nation. I have to say that it struck a chord two members of the House of Representa- different communities. with the nation more than even I thought tives, Tom Petri and David Price, from two In the discussions we have had as a Com- it would, attracting an enormous amount different parties in each case, wrote the mission, people have generally spread them- of interest from academics, journalists, and Academy a letter. If I can paraphrase, the selves in their approach along two major the public. We are already beginning to see letter acknowledged the necessity of stem axes. The first axis concerns exactly how proposals that were introduced in The Heart education–science, technology, engineer- you justify the humanities. Members of the of the Matter starting to take shape on uni- ing, mathematics–in the United States Commission tended to view the value of the versity campuses, and the Commission is today. At the same time, the letter stressed humanities as principally either instrumental now moving toward phase two of the proj- that we cannot lose sight of the importance or intrinsic. The instrumental crowd argues ect, which is to build off this positive begin- of the humanities, which have always been that the humanities are critical to the future ning with the kind of follow-on work the the other leg that education in this coun- of our nation’s creativity, economic success, report calls for.

48 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014

I would like to leave the specifics of our of the academic world in a thoughtful and work and talk for a moment about the constructive way. The Commission on the Commission on the Humanities and Social Humanities and Social Sciences represents Sciences as a model for the workings of the an opportunity to get started, and to do so American Academy itself. When I entered effectively. office as the Governor of Tennessee, I I want to conclude with a request. This thought that engaging the academic com- is obviously a group of very smart people, munity in addressing public policy prob- people who are highly respected leaders lems was a no-brainer, something I was and shapers of opinions in their communi- absolutely going to do. I live and work in ties and institutions. I would ask of you, as Nashville, and Vanderbilt University was you leave here today and in the years ahead, an obvious resource. But I was a complete to be a proselytizer for the importance of failure at engaging the academic commu- having two legs for the educational system nity in this way. A number of factors con- in our country to stand upon. We need the tributed to this failure: different time scales, humanities for our nation’s defense and for the economics of the university, and simply the strength of the economy. We need the how the state operates. And frankly, I was humanities to help produce the thought- looking to bring knowledgeable people ful and critical-minded citizens that our together who could help create a solution; democracy needs to thrive. And as individ- what I often got was a lot of people who had uals, we need the humanities to help us lead already carved out their own solutions and more fulfilling lives. were interested in promoting their answers. Until recently, the American Academy had been a mostly quiet academic institu- tion. But I believe that this organization has tremendous potential to provide some of the policy background and intellectual pol- icy work that this country so badly needs. The United States must engage its immense academic resources in creating solutions to the problems it faces, more deeply than what goes on in a D.C. think tank. The Acad- emy possesses, of course, an abundance of quality thinkers in its membership, but also a convening power through which we can advance this important process. Remember, this organization was founded by people who were up to their necks in the public pol- icy issues of their day. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson were not isolated thinkers, but were deeply involved as actors in the policy-making process. I think it would be wonderful if the Academy, in a way that is suitable for the modern era, returned to these roots, reuniting Amer- ica’s policy questions with the resources

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 49 projects

Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences

ple are thinking more instrumentally about We divided the Commission up into education than they may have in the past. groups, each with a different area of focus. The relevance of the humanities, social sci- We had groups focusing on K–12 education, ences, and liberal arts to our modern econ- on two- and four-year colleges, on research omy has been publicly called into question. and the graduate arm of the university sys- But others, Steve Jobs is one example, have tem, and on cultural institutions as well, stressed the importance of the interplay since humanities education also takes place between the creativity of the liberal arts, in museums, cultural centers, and else- humanities, and sciences. where. I was in the K–12 section because I I am a member of the Board of Trustees think this is a critically important area, not of Dartmouth College, a college that focuses only for the humanities and social sciences, on the liberal arts. Dartmouth features a but the sciences as well, which we do not very strong engineering component as well, view in opposition to the humanities. but it is viewed as a part of the liberal arts. But K–12 education is a difficult process The engineers there believe that the arts to grapple with, and one of the things that and humanities are vital to the training of we discussed is the system of localized con- their student engineers. At Dartmouth, we trol over education curricula. We don’t all Annette Gordon-Reed Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carol K. Pforz­ Our report, The Heart of the Matter, has been very heimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for well received. But beyond the positive feedback is a Advanced Study, the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law shared aspiration to use the report as something on School, and a Professor of History at Harvard which to build. We are hosting new regional meet- University. She is a member of the Academy’s Commission on the Humanities and Social Sci- ings to try to engage still more people in this pro- ences. She was elected a Fellow of the American cess. This should not be done from the top-down; Academy in 2011. ideas must come from ordinary citizens as well. erving on the Humanities Commission, Sand seeing the dedication that people hear from people all over the world who are agree about what should be taught–I am from all walks of life have poured into this interested in the model of education that from Texas, and I am often called upon to project, has been one of the most exciting we have in the United States. The countries explain my home state’s views on education and meaningful experiences of my life. that we think of as focusing primarily on the to people who do not live there. We don’t all The Commission includes scholars, uni- stem disciplines, China, for example, are agree about what it means to be a citizen. versity presidents, politicians, musicians, realizing that there is something missing Where does that leave civic education? And architects, and filmmakers–George Lucas, when the focus is all on the so-called hard with a balkanized K–12 education system, for example, participated in every meeting sciences, that there is something to be said how can we create one central message that because he is one of the many members who for the way we do things here in our system we would like to communicate? We can’t, are so deeply committed to the idea that the of higher education, which is really the envy and that is why we have engaged not only humanities and the social sciences are inte- of the world. People come from all over to the members of the Commission, but we gral parts of any society. study in the United States, and they learn went out and talked to regional and state Many of us have children, and many that our university model is not only con- humanities councils, to involve people from have children now graduating from college. cerned with science, but also with the arts different regions of the country and benefit Everyone is interested in finding a job. Peo- and humanities. from their understanding of the process as

50 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014

The Lincoln Project: Excellence and Access in Public Higher Education

they have experienced it. The whole subject for public education in the United States. of history–my own field–is contentious, To particularize the state disinvestment in and historical interpretations vary widely terms of one institution that I understand by region. Citizens are today discussing the well, when I started as Chancellor of the Uni- Fourteenth Amendment in many contexts, versity of California, Berkeley in 2004, the about what the history of the amendment state provided 29 percent of our total budget. means, about state authority, about how it When I finished as Chancellor last May, that informs our response to the government number had plummeted to 11 percent. shutdown, about what the president can If the compact that Governor Schwarzeneg- and cannot do. Having an educated citi- ger had signed at the time of my recruitment zenry is a prerequisite for any kind of sub- was honored, then our funding from the state stantive consideration of these issues. The this past year would have been $590 million. discussion may not give us the final answer, Instead, it was $240 million; we lost $350 mil- or the best answer, but participating in these lion out of our budget over a very short length types of discussions is part of what it means of time. To put that in human terms, this to be a citizen in a democracy. means that the state withdrew the salaries Our report, The Heart of the Matter, as for more than one-half of our 8,000 staff who was mentioned before, has been very well support the educational enterprise. Clearly, received. But beyond the positive feedback Robert J. Birgeneau this presented an extraordinary challenge. is a shared aspiration to use the report as Robert J. Birgeneau is Chancellor Emeritus and Why should we care about this? Why do something on which to build. We are host- Silverman Professor of Physics, Materials Sci- public universities matter? The motto for ing new regional meetings to try to engage ence and Engineering and Public Policy at the both uc Berkeley and the Lincoln Project still more people in this process. This should is “Access and Excellence.” To put it suc- University of California, Berkeley. He is Cochair not be done from the top-down; ideas must cinctly, the greatest challenge facing our of the Academy’s Lincoln Project and a member come from ordinary citizens as well. I have country in higher education is whether or of the Academy’s Commission on the Human- been enormously gratified by my participa- not we are going to be able to maintain both ities and Social Sciences. He was elected a Fellow tion on the Commission, and I look forward access and excellence in our great public to continuing its work. Please, join us with of the American Academy in 1987. universities. I will not go through the details your ideas, with your hopes and your pro- of the financial models for public research posed solutions about what we should do, he Lincoln Project is at a very different and teaching universities, but suffice it to because we are truly in this together. Tstage from the Humanities Commis- say, I have no doubt that we could main- sion, which I also serve on. This project is at tain access if we sacrificed the excellence its very beginning. We held our first meet- of our institutions, as we could also main- ing here at the Academy only days ago, and tain excellence by sacrificing public access. it was an exciting and stimulating meeting. However, our country simply cannot afford I am particularly pleased to have as a cochair to compromise on either if we want to sus- of the Lincoln Project Mary Sue Coleman, tain both our economic preeminence and President of the University of Michigan. our democratic society. I am sure that I do not have to explain to If you look at the top ten comprehensive anybody in this room that public research public research and teaching universities universities have faced extraordinary finan- in the United States, you will see that in the cial challenges over these past six or seven last year, they educated about 375,000 under- years. Unprecedented in history, the cuts in graduate students. This includes just the top state funding that we have received are much ten universities! Clearly, this is an enormous worse than those that occurred during the number of students, and whether it is Mich- Depression. This has been a singular time igan or Berkeley or Colorado, these under-

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 51 projects

graduates are typically the very best students Many of us, perhaps myself most promi- tee. Because this topic is a public policy and in their respective states. These institutions nently, believe that the progressive disinvest- political challenge, our committee includes are providing an education to our country’s ment in higher education by the states across politicians like Phil Bredesen, the former most talented young people state by state the country is irreversible. This conundrum is Governor of Tennessee, former Senator Kay (excluding, of course, the very small per- not going to be solved through repeated trips Bailey Hutchison, and former Governor of centage of top students who go off to our elite to state capitals pleading for a return to a past California Gray Davis. We have also enlisted private universities). Furthermore, these stu- system of investment. We believe that the business people, and we have a number of dents are diverse in every sense of the word. model for the support of elite public higher current and former university leaders, from I will again give Berkeley as an example education is broken, and we need a new both public and private research universities. because I know this school best: currently on model–a model that will involve, among In addition, we have a number of talented the Berkeley campus, we have 4,000 under- others, the federal government not just sup- data experts because we must make our case graduates whose family incomes are $20,000 porting research, but supporting operations convincingly. This cannot be an exercise in a year or less. Four thousand is the size of the directly. The U.S. federal government does whining; it has to be fact-based, with reli- entire undergraduate body at a representa- not now support the operations of its great able historical data and projections into the tive private university like mit. Nearly every public universities; this is in contrast with the future. Finally, we have communications one of these low-income students will be the situation in every single other country with specialists because we recognize the chal- first in his or her family to graduate from which we compete economically. We both lenges that public higher education has faced

The greatest challenge facing our country in higher education is whether or not we are going to be able to maintain both access and excellence in our great public universities. . . . The goal of this project is direct political and social action that will result in genuine and lasting reforms to the model for the support of public higher education in the United States. college. When these students graduate they recognize and appreciate the phenomenal in communicating properly all aspects of our will elevate not just themselves but, most support that public universities have received enterprise to the various sectors of society. often, their entire families along with them. from private philanthropists. Indeed, it has Looking ahead, we might very much like to Furthermore, close to 90 percent of these been private philanthropy that has saved explore these challenges in an issue of Dæda- 4,000 undergraduate students at Berkeley Berkeley over these past six years. However, lus of our own, but if we stopped there, we are people of color. Public universities there- we also believe that corporate America must would have failed. The goal of this commit- fore represent an extraordinary mechanism step up to the task; their support so far has tee is direct political and social action that for social mobility in our country, most been disappointing. In California, at least, will result in genuine and lasting reforms to especially for underrepresented minori- if our major high-tech corporations simply the model for the support of public higher ties. Frankly, we could solve our economic repatriated 1 percent of the money annually education in the United States. While we problems at Berkeley simply by reducing by that they are holding offshore and dedicated must first provide the basic information and a factor of two the need-based financial aid it to higher education this would solve our make our case convincingly, we will follow that we offer to low-income students, and problem. Of course, we also need the state up this scholarly work by playing a direct, instead devoting those funds to staff and governments to act more responsibly. active role in support of public higher edu- faculty salaries. However if we did that, we To address the plight of higher education, cation in the corporate, philanthropic, state, would be betraying our mission as a public most especially in our country’s great pub- and federal government sectors. university. We are not going to do that; and lic teaching and research universities, we this defines our challenge. have put together a broad-based commit-

52 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014

Stewarding America

The Stewarding America project is an attempt to look at the future of civil society in America – the pervasiveness of the sense of the common good – creating or enhancing the notion that we are all in this together.

lenges we face in an era of partisan and ideo- issues, including race, that for many decades logical polarization; and during the present were ignored or treated unfairly in that pub- government shutdown, these challenges are lic square; but the point is, if you have dif- very palpable. Now, frankly, if we only had ferences in viewpoints but share a common to contend with ideological and partisan set of facts, you can then argue construc- polarization, which we have experienced tively from there. Today, rather, we cannot many times in American history, we could agree even on a starting point. How can you overcome that. There are ways in which you deal with the problem of climate change, as can find a compromise. Many issues are not we have discussed today, if a sizable share Norman J. Ornstein ideological in nature; many of the issues we of your public and political actors believe Norman J. Ornstein is Resident Scholar at the have been discussing here this morning are that it’s a hoax? You cannot even begin to American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy examples of things on which we can find discuss whether a regime of regulation, of a Research. He is Chair of the Academy’s project common ground. But what we have now is a carbon tax, of cap and trade are appropriate, tribalism where if you are for it, I am against or how fast you ought to move and at what on Stewarding America. He was elected a Fellow it, even if I was for it yesterday. levels. You cannot even talk to each other. of the American Academy in 2004. A couple of weeks ago, I was struck by This impasse also has roots in the recent a segment on comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s and dramatic change in the role of money he Academy was created to provide a late-night show in which an interviewer in American life and politics. During last Tforum for leading scholars, members took to the streets and posed to strangers, year’s Induction weekend, Jim Leach, then of the learned professions, and leaders in “Which do you support, Obamacare or the chairman of the National Endowment for government and business to work together Affordable Care Act?” We met a group of the Humanities, gave an extraordinarily elo- on behalf of the democratic interests of people who replied, “Obamacare, that’s quent and powerful discussion of the post– the republic. The project on Stewarding awful, it’ll destroy the country and the econ- Citizens United world. We have been there America is right in the wheelhouse of that omy; it’s socialism. The Affordable Care before; it was called the Gilded Age. We are mission and charge. Really, the Stewarding Act is wonderful.” That example may tell us moving to a new Gilded Age, one that dis- America project is an attempt to look at the something about the state of civic and other torts priorities and interests in directions future of civil society in America, the perva- education in the country, but it also tells that do not answer to the common good. siveness of the sense of the common good, us that labels matter now much more than We have seen a dramatic coarsening of the creating or enhancing the notion that we are they did before. That is a terrible problem, culture and discourse in this society. If you all in this together. and it is combined with a series of other go on television and lie and get caught in When we started this project, I had just deep challenges we face. the lie, the only lesson learned is that if you finished a book on the state of our political We have witnessed the decline of the pub- double-down on the lie, you will get your system with my coauthor and Academy Fel- lic square. When I and many of you grew up, own cable television show or talk radio low Tom Mann called It’s Even Worse Than It Americans shared a common set of facts. show, or if you are a political figure, donors Looks. We just printed the paperback edition We tended to get our information from the will flood you with money and you become a and I should have called it It’s Even Worse Than same small number of sources. There were hero or heroine to your base. Combine these It Was: A Year Later. All of us know the chal- plenty of problems with that. There were standards of honesty with the decline in

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 53 projects

civility and the dramatic growth in inequal- urge you to read these essays because they ity and it is a challenge to be hopeful. are quite elegant and profound. But we also Neal Lane was talking earlier about the want to move toward an agenda of action; American Dream, how our children and we need to engage leaders more than we grandchildren cannot necessarily embrace have. Unfortunately, we are living in an era the idea that if you simply apply yourself, of populism, with an economy that has been you can achieve your dreams. Strains of this stagnant, and where it is tough to find lead- disillusionment have begun to extend to ers in any institution who can command a the social fabric as well. Where I fear we are broader level of public support. Some of our headed–and what I have seen the last few leaders, including a few in the military, have years–actually reminds me of the movie feet of clay. We need both a new generation and the book that preceded it, The War of of leaders and for an older generation of the Roses, in which there is such intent on leaders to step up, to begin to shift the cul- destroying your adversaries or scoring ture and change the institutions. political points that you are oblivious to the We are planning a conference that will notion that you are destroying your own focus on a plan of action for the future, and society along the way. This is our danger: we hope to engage all of you–that is the role when you have a monomaniacal focus on of the Academy. We are joined together with issues like sequesters, you cannot take into the founding members of the Academy– account the greater cost to society of ignor- John and Samuel Adams and John Hancock, ing the things that grow the economy, that among others–to answer a call to action. grow the educational system, that prepare We are stewards of this society. n our children for the future. In response, there are many institutions, © 2014 by Neal Lane, Venkatesh Narayana- organizations, and individuals focused on murti, Steven E. Miller, Robert Rosner, what we can do about it. The Bechtel Foun- Robert W. Fri, Maxine L. Savitz, Philip dation, which helped fund this project, has Bredesen, Annette Gordon-Reed, Robert J. studied citizenship. We decided that our Birgeneau, and Norman J. Ornstein, particular focus would be on the role of respectively institutions in stewarding America. Wil- liam Galston and I edited the Spring 2013 issue of Dædalus on “American Democracy & the Common Good,” which focused on American institutions in the public and political sphere: from the courts to the mil- itary, to the political institutions and the parties, to unions and corporations, to the nonprofit sector and journalism. We tried to look at the broader culture as well, what Deborah Tannen in her essay has called “The Argument Culture,” and we looked at the history and tradition of compromise, trying to imagine how we can reestablish a public commons. If you have not yet read this Dædalus vol- ume, it is now available online, and I would

54 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014

A View of the Visiting Scholars

By Patricia Meyer Spacks Patricia Meyer Spacks, a Fellow of the American Academy since 1994, is the Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English, Emerita, at the University of Virginia. She has directed the Visiting Scholars Program since 2006, and codirected the program with Mary Maples Dunn since 2011.

hen the Academy’s Visiting Scholars Program begins its Wtwelfth year in September, a new director will guide it. Law- rence Buell, a Fellow of the American Academy since 2008 and Pow- ell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature Emeritus at Harvard University, will bring his expertise as teacher, scholar, and adminis- trator to the leadership of an innovative and thriving enterprise. Professor Buell, one of the founders of environmental criticism as a literary specialty, received in 2007 the Jay Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Achievement in American Literary Studies. He has taught and written widely about nineteenth-century American literature, his books including a prize-winning study of Ralph Waldo Emerson (2003). A more recent work, The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Criticism and Literary Imagination (2005), not only sur- veys the history of an important field, but also provides informed speculation about its future possibilities. Few other residential fellowship programs make themselves Professor Buell’s interest in American literature and culture available to social scientists and humanists at early stages of their makes him an appropriate mentor for the Visiting Scholars, whose postdoctoral development. The Visiting Scholars Program typically projects typically focus on some aspect of American culture. More- includes mainly young people engaged in converting dissertations over, his commitment to liberal education at every level prepares into books, with a minority of more advanced assistant professors him to think innovatively about the needs of young people at the working on second books. The group always contains some seeking beginning of their academic careers. The Visiting Scholars Pro- their first academic jobs and others already established in tenure gram has consistently explored ways to fill those needs. Its fellow- track positions. Informal systems of mentorship develop within ships facilitate young scholars’ writing and publication, but they the small community, with advice and support for the job search also provide opportunities to acquire new kinds of knowledge and readily available–and without the uncomfortable competitive sit- understanding. uations that often arise in graduate school departments. The Schol- The Academy has always served and been served by men and ars help one another to refine job talks, providing tips based on their (more recently) women of distinction. The Visiting Scholars Pro- own interview experience, and they generally form ad hoc writing gram, supported by a consortium of contributing colleges and groups to criticize and encourage the work in progress of individual universities, extends the organization’s reach to those showing participants. promise at a stage of intellectual development too early for public The more formal arrangements that have developed in the pro- distinction. Given limited funding and space, it can involve only gram, which Mary Maples Dunn and I currently co-direct, sys- seven to nine Scholars a year. Each holds a Ph.D. in the humanities tematically support the Scholars. During the second semester, or social sciences and is either an untenured assistant professor or members of the group make formal presentations of their written a postdoctoral student. Two Harvard dissertation students sup- work, in weekly or bi-weekly meetings that generate challenging ported by the Mahindra Humanities Center customarily join many questions and searching criticism. These sessions also, increasingly of the program’s activities, becoming part of the community, but as the semester goes on, entail broad discussion of disciplinary sim- even their inclusion brings the total number to fewer than a dozen. ilarities and differences, as historians encounter the assumptions This fact has come to seem advantageous: small numbers facilitate of literary critics, art historians try to figure out what economic bonding and enable individual mentoring. historians believe, sociologists and political scientists talk to one

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 55 projects

another, and so on. The specific issues discussed vary from year to the opening years of a teaching career. We began by inviting a lit- year, depending on the disciplines represented and the nature of erary agent who specialized in academic books. That was seven or the participants, but the discussions often generate complex indi- eight years ago. She has returned every year since, patiently point- vidual commitments to intellectual activity across disciplines– ing out that dissertation advisors commonly do not really know commitments likely to produce significant pedagogical and schol- what the publishing scene is like now for beginners, and providing arly effects in the long run. specific information about how to write a good book proposal– The second-semester meetings follow a familiar model from cen- and, for that matter, a good book. She talks, to rapt listeners, about ters for more advanced academics, such as the Radcliffe Institute audience, about contracts, about individual presses, about good prose. She answers endless questions. The Academy has always served and been served She helps the Scholars feel like profes- sionals, even if they have not yet held a by men and (more recently) women of distinction. full-time academic job. The Visiting Scholars Program, supported by a Over the years, others have joined her, with focused information and consortium of contributing colleges and universities, generous responsiveness. Always, at least one editor from an academic extends the organization’s reach to those showing press comes, to reinforce many of the promise at a stage of intellectual development too points made by the literary agent and to talk about a publisher’s point of view early for public distinction. toward submissions. Other speakers vary from year to year. We have heard and the National Humanities Center in North Carolina. The first- from public intellectuals, talking about how and why they do what semester activities of the Visiting Scholars Program, in contrast, have they do; from practitioners of digital scholarship; from accom- developed without a model, on the basis of experience from earlier plished scholars discussing not what they are currently writing, years, to provide a pragmatic grounding for academic development. but what habits they have developed to facilitate their research When the program began, we thought it wise to plan regular and writing and what practices they would recommend to rela- afternoon meetings for the group as a whole, so that they would tively inexperienced writers. Visitors have pondered, among other bond and become accustomed to collaborative functioning. In the things, ethical and moral issues raised by the activities of public first semester, we believed, it would be useful to have established intellectuals, educators’ conflicting responsibilities, intricacies of scholars come to talk about their current work. The Visiting Schol- the tenure process, possibilities for recipients of the Ph.D. to find ars would thus meet important local figures and encounter models satisfying employment outside academia, and the nature of an aca- of intellectual activity. demic’s institutional obligations. Sometimes individual Scholars Fellows of the Academy and other distinguished Cambridge and have thought previously about the questions being raised, but often Boston academics generously participated in this enterprise, which they find the topics in themselves revelatory. The ensuing informal often stimulated vigorous discussions. Gradually, though, it became discussions among members of the group frequently continue for clear that talks unrelated to the specific undertakings of the Visit- days, and the issues visitors raise tend to re-surface in subsequent ing Scholars, although often interesting to their listeners, did not formal meetings. help them in their immediate enterprise. The rich resources of the Whatever their nominal subject, the Tuesday afternoon visi- Academy were already available to them: they could hear eminent tors repeatedly allude to the matter of writing. The literary agent scholars at Stated Meetings and at the monthly Friday Forums. The stresses the importance of effective prose in selling book pro- Mahindra Humanities Center regularly invited them to its events. posals and books alike. She also suggests specific qualities that Elsewhere at Harvard and at other nearby academic institutions, make prose work well. Academics talking about their habits as they might listen to speakers on virtually any subject. More of the writers often speak also of what hard work writing turns out to same did not seem particularly useful. be, and of obstacles they have faced. Public intellectuals and More valuable, it turned out, was practical, up-to-date informa- editors alike may dwell on how a writer’s prose must change in tion of a sort they had not acquired in graduate school, or even in order to attract a broad audience. Such topics not only provoke

56 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 a view of the visiting scholars

The culture of the community centers on writing, and most of its participants write more eloquently at the end of their Academy experience than they did at the beginning. In any case, they have heightened their awareness of the urgency of good prose. immediate questions and discussion; they also gradually begin of the urgency of good prose. Lawrence Buell, himself a luminous to affect the Scholars’ critical standards, revealed as they com- writer, will provide distinguished guidance for succeeding groups ment on one another’s work. of Scholars. I myself have often given one formal talk during the year on the As their stay at the Academy concludes, the Visiting Scholars pro- subject of writing, revisiting the kind of advice that students receive duce enthusiastic evaluations of their experience. They then go into in their freshman composition courses. That advice sounds quite careers mainly of teaching and writing. By now those from previous different in the new context of a community whose members are classes have produced over a hundred books, some of them edited writing books. Unlike most students of freshman composition, or co-edited, but the great majority works of individual authorship. Visiting Scholars all have subjects they urgently wish to expound. They have achieved tenure in institutions large and small, or they Writing matters to them. As a Harvard graduate student remarked, are in tenure track positions. They have, as a direct result of the it actually feels thrilling to revisit such subjects as the nature of a Visiting Scholars Program, deepened and broadened their under- sentence when you have already discovered for yourself the impor- standing of their vocations. One member of the class of 2010–2011 tance and the difficulty of producing good sentences. wrote, “My residency at the Academy . . . had a profound effect on No one learns to write well just by hearing other people talk about the character and quality of my scholarship. Being part of such a good writing. The mentorship provided in the Visiting Scholars dynamic and gifted cohort has been by turns inspiring, humbling, Program includes, for those who want it (and most do), close indi- and hugely suggestive. The opportunity to be in close conversation vidual attention to the linguistic details of what a Scholar writes. with colleagues from across the humanities has granted me a new All members of the group can receive critiques not only from their perspective on matters of audience, argumentation, and evidence; peers, but from Mary Dunn and me, who frequently provide line it has also introduced me to a number of new methodologies.” Like by line commentary, both written and oral. The culture of the com- others in the program, he seems on track to become exactly what munity centers on writing, and most of its participants write more the program’s originators hoped: a leader in his profession. n eloquently at the end of their Academy experience than they did at the beginning. In any case, they have heightened their awareness © 2014 by Patricia Meyer Spacks

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 57 projects

A View from a Visiting Scholar

By John Kaag John Kaag is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Academy in 2007–2008.

estled back on its corner of Norton Woods, the House of the NAcademy struck me on my first day as a page out of Frank Lloyd Wright’s draft book–one of those rare structures where ancient materials take on genuinely novel forms. The architecture of the House, which is a cross between classical villa and American arts-and-crafts, reflects one of the leading ideas of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, namely that the old and new must cohabitate for academia to remain both grounded and fresh. This was my first lesson as a Visiting Scholar. I remember on my first day at the Academy opening the heavy oak front doors to the House. John Adams, the second President of the United States, greeted me–at least his nineteenth-century portrait did. It hangs in the central atrium between a selection of acceptance letters from Academy members: Albert Einstein, Rich- ard Feynman, and Robert Frost, among others. I felt totally out of place. A security guard in a blue blazer approached and kindly To be clear, I’ve never had as much academic freedom as I had as explained: “the offices for the Visiting Scholars are upstairs.” a Visiting Scholar. I was free to visit every library and every archive “And in the future,” he added, “you can use the back stairwell to on Harvard’s campus. And I did. I was free to write, or not write, get there.” exactly what I chose. And I did. Of course, I was secretly terrified At the time, his suggestion seemed a little rude for all of the by this freedom, but I could always walk back to the Academy and obvious reasons, but over the course of the year it began to make commiserate with budding scholars (smarter than I was) who were very good sense. There were seven Visiting Scholars that year, and just as scared. I could also look to distinguished scholars who had as the months rolled on we became increasingly chatty and, I will managed to face this freedom without going to pieces. One of them only speak for myself, ill-kempt. But we also became increasingly was Patricia Meyer Spacks. productive. The Visiting Scholars would trundle up to the second Pat is indefatigable. A member of the Academy and one of its floor of the Academy, arguing about the state of religion in Amer- former presidents, Pat also directed the Visiting Scholars Program ica, or about how to construct a really compelling first sentence, during my tenure. If she was not editing the latest collection of Jane or about the speaker that we had heard last Tuesday. And on these Austen, she was writing a book on rereading, or during my year at afternoons I was glad we did not have to lower our voices. After all, the Academy, reading yet another draft manuscript from a Visiting we were using the back staircase. Scholar. She didn’t have to do any of this, especially, I often thought, The Visiting Scholars had learned very different things in gradu- read materials from junior scholars who were trying to find their ate school–how to be professors of English, history, law, political voices. But she did. Pat was our constant companion during our time science, and philosophy. But we had also learned a common lesson: on the second floor of the Academy. Her office–exactly the size and how to work in perfect isolation. It took us a number of months shape of my own–was right next door, and her door was always to overcome this lesson of graduate school, to realize that research open. Without Pat’s daily encouragement, I would have never pur- is done best when it is done with others. This is a given in the sci- sued, much less completed, my first book,Idealism, Pragmatism and ences, but the advantages of collaboration and discussion are often Feminism. My interactions with Pat imparted the most important downplayed in the humanities and social sciences, which take the lessons that I learned as a Visiting Scholar: new forms do not survive monastic model of scholarship rather seriously. So it took us a little without the help of established ones; new forms eventually become while to realize that intellectual isolation wasn’t a good in itself. old; and when they do, there is some indebtedness to the new growth.

58 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 a view from a visiting scholar

The Visiting Scholars Program has provided the tions. Robert Pinsky, the United States Poet Laureate, came to talk to us about style and space for young humanists and social scientists voice and all of us listened. Very. Carefully. to remember that they might have once aspired to Reading and writing, if I understood Pinsky that day, is always an existential affair, one the highly technical and the soaringly beautiful, that is necessarily and profoundly personal. and that such aspirations are not to be put off until An academic author who overlooks this fact will tend to write books that are easily over- some distant day. looked. This general suggestion was restated by a literary agent the next week, Wendy I will not forget these lessons. I will also not forget the little kitch- Strothman, who explained the concrete and very specific guidelines enette on the second floor of the Academy where Joy Rohde, David that she used to judge popular academic writing–hook a reader, Sehat, and I had lunch on a daily basis. This is the place where Joy’s motivate a topic, write what you know, and avoid all semblance of manuscript on the military implications of social science research jargon. She urged us to keep these guidelines in mind as we devel- took form (published with Cornell in 2013), where I provided David oped our next projects and invited all of the Visiting Scholars to what he has called the most important sentence of his preface to the send her draft proposals. Many of us did and we received extensive Myth of American Religious Freedom (published with Oxford in 2012), feedback. and where David, a historian, gave me, a philosopher, what remains The invited speakers, often established academics from all over the most constructive critique of Thinking Through the Imagination the country, have changed over the years; this fall Harvard history (which I will publish with Fordham in 2014). professor and New Yorker author Jill Lepore came to talk to the Vis- By this point, it should be obvious that the Visiting Scholars iting Scholars. I had heard that she was coming to the Academy and Program does not operate like an intellectual “Upstairs, Down- was more than a little jealous of this year’s cohort. So I contacted stairs.” Its participants, most of them either post-doctoral fellows Lepore to give me a hint of what I had missed, to give me a sense of or untenured assistant professors, are fully integrated members the advice she had given this year’s Scholars (such is the audacity of Academy life. We were encouraged to attend informal lunches of a former Visiting Scholar). “The word on the academic street,” held once a week on the first floor of the Academy where Academy Lepore said, “is that what you ought to do is to write a dissertation members who lived in the Cambridge area would gather to chat to satisfy your graduate school advisor, turn it into a monograph to about their research. The members, most of them distinguished satisfy your discipline’s tenure requirements, and then, and only full professors, many of them Nobel laureates, regarded the seven then, write the way you’d like to write.” This was also the “word on of us as intellectual equals or, if not perfect equals, then as very the street” a few years ago when I went through graduate school: promising junior colleagues. Graduate school is meant to prepare defer the questions of style and motivation and voice until after a student to become a scholar in his or her own right, but it often all of your disciplinary hurdles are cleared. Lepore continued: only cements the rigid hierarchy between professor and pupil. As “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with writing a highly technical a Visiting Scholar, however, one thing was clear. I was no longer dissertation and a very specialized monograph; that sort of work is just a student. crucial to the production of knowledge and the exchange of ideas. This does not mean that I didn’t still have much to learn–like But if, all along, you wanted to write differently, you should do that how to write a successful book proposal, how to write for an audi- from the start. Saying you’ll write something soaringly beautiful ence larger than a doctoral committee, and how to understand after you get tenure is like saying you’ll spend time with your kids the responsibilities of being a public intellectual. And the Visiting after they’re grown.” Scholars Program was geared to help me acquire this knowledge The Visiting Scholars Program has provided the space for young and the practical tools that would allow me not only to become a humanists and social scientists to remember that they might have scholar in my own right, but a truly good one. Every Tuesday Pat once aspired to the highly technical and the soaringly beautiful, and would arrange an afternoon speaker for our group, who would that such aspirations are not to be put off until some distant day. I address some aspect of writing or research. Graduate students am grateful to have been one of these young scholars. n spend a great deal of time writing, but not enough time thinking about the process itself. So these were much needed conversa- © 2014 by John Kaag

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 59 reflections

Point of View: Talks on Education by Edward H. Levi

Reflections by Kenneth Prewitt Kenneth Prewitt, a Fellow of the American Academy and Vice President from 1989 to 1994, was on the faculty of the University of Chicago (1964 to 1979) during Edward Levi’s tenure. Prewitt currently teaches at Colum- bia University, where he also directs the Scholarly Knowledge Project, sponsored by Sage Publications.

hat would Edward H. Levi, President of the American Acad- W emy from 1986–1989, think of crowd sourcing–of the idea, common among techno-optimists, that knowledge need not be filtered by gatekeepers–editors, curators, faculty–but should be directly and democratically accessible? A hint appears in Point of View, when Levi cites an adage George Bernard Shaw hung over his fireplace: “They say. What say they? Let them say.” Levi, like Shaw, a skeptic, insisted that the frequency with which an idea is repeated “is not a test which promotes rational discus- sion. It is a setting in which the waves and tides of popular thought . . . have magnified importance.” (pp. 8–9) It is a tragedy for soci- ety, noted Levi, to believe that how often something is said or how many say it is a guide to knowledge or source of truth. Levi’s likely view on crowd sourcing is a starting point to reflect more broadly on his view of the research university–a companion essay to Jack Fuller’s reflection on how Levi, as Attorney General, restored legal integrity to a government corrupted by Watergate.1 Levi’s task as professor, dean, provost, and president of the Univer- sity of Chicago was to stiffen the resolve of its faculty buffeted by voices, some internal, doubting its authority and its relevance in the turmoil of the 1960s. The specific challenges of a half-century ago have faded only to be replaced by new ones arriving with the digital revolution and changing market forces. Research universities, along with librar- ies, museums, academic societies, and scholarly publishers, have watched their monopolies erode and established hierarchies crum- preneurial universities mix commercial pursuit with educational ble. Consultancy firms, think tanks, corporations, bloggers, and, mission; to the sad truth that American universities are extend- yes, social media with its algorithms are in the knowledge busi- ing their global footprint more eagerly in the cash-rich Gulf States ness now. And, yes, crowd sourcing and big data do have things to and East Asia than in Africa, where the need is much greater; to teach us. The pace is picking up; and there is anxious discussion of the self-censorship of politically unpalatable scholarship in closed whether the American university will follow the path of the Amer- (and wealthy) countries; to the wistful hope that technology will ican news industry. provide a cheap fix for poor teaching; to the infatuation with per- Levi’s Point of View is relevant to dubious developments of our formance metrics, including the idea that the quality of a degree time: to the mercenary alacrity with which self-declared entre- can be measured by the prospective income of its graduates (but not by the prospective quality of their parenting, civic engagement, 1 See the Spring 2013 issue of the Academy’s Bulletin. or appreciation of the arts). Of these trends, Levi would ask hard Note: All quotations are taken from Edward H. Levi, Point of View: Talks questions; I doubt they would gain his approval. But these targets on Education (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969). are perhaps too easy.

60 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014

It may be more instructive to consider Levi’s thinking through The relevance of Point of View today is its subtle distinction his conviction that the research university should not only study between practices and principles. It is not a defense of institutional social ills, but should act on them, even directly service people dam- practices–not even of cornerstones like peer-review, the seminar, aged by them. He boasted that under his leadership the University or tenure. Point of View is, rather, a resolute defense of principles of Chicago “. . . runs hospitals, legal clinics, offers psychiatric and expressed through those practices. Peer review stands for expertise psychological help within the public schools, and performs social that assesses the accuracy and quality of knowledge claims; the service work. This is not just research, but service of the highest seminar allows for mentoring and the transmission of standards order.” (p. 132) This, however, was not Levi’s last word. Therein from professor to student; tenure is simply a means to ensure lies its importance. A research university is not a substitute govern- inquiry free of political interference or influence by its funders. ment, charity, or advocacy group. If it takes up action and service it “Creative destruction” is a phrase often found in commentary does so only as a peripheral project. on the coming transformation of the university, especially by those The research university has a different center of gravity. It exists who believe that such practices as peer review, seminars, or tenure to teach what is known, investigate what is unknown, and then, as should give way, at least as we know them today, to make room for the unknown becomes the newly known, replenish what is taught. technology-based practices and a more secure business model. Per- Inquiry and pedagogy are linked in this endless cycle of the search for haps so, but it is well to keep in mind that the creative destruction knowledge and its dissemination. It is this that distinguishes research of which Joseph Schumpeter wrote was in jobs and products. It was universities from governments, charities, and advocacy groups. blacksmiths and buggy whips that had to go, but not capitalism’s Levi’s argument starts from the premise that research universi- fundamental confidence in the profit motive. Communism erred ties are about the life of the mind, which requires that they defend in that regard, just as crowd sourcing’s mistake is to think it has no “their protected remoteness; their freedom to be objective; their use for gatekeepers. determination to seek intellectual truth on its own terms.” (p. 55) A world without the University of Chicago would sadden Edward Protected remoteness is not disengaged neutrality. The university Levi. A world without a place of inquiry free of political, commer- is not a by-stander. It should engage, but not in the political ways cial, or service goals would alarm him. His message to us: hold fast demanded in the 1960s or the practical ways demanded today. The to the foundation even if creative destruction rearranges–and research university intervenes–uniquely–through propagating tosses out some of–the furniture. n the inherent “worthwhileness of the intellectual pursuit of truth.” (p. 182) In a famous formulation, Levi tells us that the university is © 2014 by Kenneth Prewitt custodian of reason itself. If at times it fell short in the turmoil of the 1960s, or perhaps in adjusting to the challenges of today, this did not alter its defining responsibility: self-correcting critical inquiry.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 61 noteworthy

As of press time, several Fellows Wolf Prizes, 2014 Pedro Almodovar (El Deseo Pro- Greg J. Duncan (University of of the Academy, listed below, had duction Company) is the recipi- California, Irvine) is the recip- been nominated or appointed Chemistry ent of the European Achievement ient of the 2013 Klaus J. Jacobs to key positions in the Obama in World Cinema from the Euro- Research Prize. administration: Chi-huey Wong (Scripps Research pean Film Academy. Institute; Academia Sinica) Claire Fagin (New York, New Stanley Fischer (Bank of Israel) Roger Angell (The New Yorker) was York) received an Award for Dis- was nominated as Vice Chair- Medicine elected the 2014 winner of the tinguished Service from the New man of the United States Federal J.G. Taylor Spink Award by the York Academy of Medicine and the Reserve. Victor Ambros (University of Baseball Writers’ Association of Lillian Wald Award from the Visit- Massachusetts Medical School) America. ing Nurse Service of New York. Shirley Ann Jackson (Rensse- laer Polytechnic Institute) was Gary Ruvkun (Harvard Medical Martina Arroyo (Indiana Uni- Drew Gilpin Faust (Harvard Uni- appointed a Member of the School; Massachusetts General versity) received a 2013 Kennedy versity) received the 2013 Ruth Advanced Manufacturing Part- Hospital) Center Honor. Ratner Miller Award for Excel- nership Steering Committee 2.0. lence in American History. Nahum Sonenberg (McGill Uni- Wendell Berry (Port Royal, Marc Kastner (Massachusetts versity) Kentucky) received the Rich- David Frohnmayer (University Institute of Technology) was nom- ard C. Holbrooke Distinguished of Oregon) received the James B. inated to head the Department of Achievement Award from the Conant Award of Merit in Educa- Energy’s Office of Science. Presidential Medal of Dayton Literary Peace Prize tion from Delta Upsilon Interna- Freedom Foundation. tional Fraternity. Janet Yellen (United States Fed- eral Reserve) was confirmed as William Clinton (Bill, Hillary & Robert J. Birgeneau (University James Fujimoto (Massachusetts Chairwoman of the United States Chelsea Clinton Foundation) of California, Berkeley) is the Institute of Technology) received Federal Reserve. recipient of the 2013 Chief Exec- the 2014 ieee Photonics Award. Daniel Kahneman (Princeton utive Officer Leadership Award University) from District VII of the Council Melinda Gates (The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and William Richard Lugar (Lugar Center) for Advancement and Support of Select Prizes and Education (case). Gates (Microsoft Corporation; The Awards to Members Patricia M. Wald (Washington, D.C.) Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) Nicholas Bloom (Stanford Univer- received the Lasker-Bloomberg sity) was awarded the 2014 Ewing Public Service Award. Nobel Prizes, 2013 Breakthrough Prize Marion Kauffman Prize Medal for Distinguished Research in Entre- Philip Glass (New York, New Chemistry in Life Sciences preneurship, given by the Ewing York) is among the winners of the Marion Kauffman Foundation. Praemium Imperiale given by the Martin Karplus (Harvard Univer- Mahlon R. DeLong (Emory Uni- Japan Art Association. sity) versity) Richard H. Brodhead (Duke Uni- versity) is the recipient of a 2013 Shafi Goldwasser (Massachu- Michael Levitt (Stanford Univer- Robert S. Langer (Massachusetts setts Institute of Technology; Institute of Technology) Academic Leadership Award sity School of Medicine) from Carnegie Corporation of Weizmann Institute of Science) Richard P. Lifton (Yale University) New York. has been named a 2013 Fellow of Economic Sciences the Massachusetts Academy of Alexander Varshavsky (Califor- Colin Camerer (California Insti- Sciences. Eugene Fama (University of Chi- nia Institute of Technology) tute of Technology) was named a cago) 2013 MacArthur Fellow. Herbie Hancock (Los Angeles, California) received a 2013 Ken- Lars Peter Hansen (University of Breakthrough Prize Herman Chernoff (Harvard Uni- nedy Center Honor. Chicago) versity) received the 2013 Rao in Physics Prize. Larry V. Hedges (Northwestern Robert J. Shiller (Yale University) University; norc at the Univer- John H. Schwarz (California In- David DeRosier (Brandeis Uni- sity of Chicago) has been named Literature stitute of Technology) versity) received the Microscopy the 2013–2014 Statistician of the Society of America’s Distin- Year by the Chicago Chapter of the Alice Munro (Clinton, Ontario, guished Scientist Award. American Statistical Association. Canada) Other Awards E. L. Doctorow (New York Uni- John L. Hennessy (Stanford Uni- Physiology or Medicine Shirley S. Abrahamson (Wiscon- versity) was awarded the National versity) is the recipient of a 2013 sin Supreme Court) received a Dis- Book Foundation’s 2013 Medal Academic Leadership Award James E. Rothman (Yale Univer- tinguished Alumni Service Award for Distinguished Contribution to from Carnegie Corporation of sity) from Indiana University. American Letters. New York. Randy W. Schekman (University Edward Adelson (Massachusetts James Dumesic (University of Katherine A. High (The Chil- of California, Berkeley) Institute of Technology) has been Wisconsin-Madison) was elected dren’s Hospital of Philadelphia) named a 2013 Fellow of the Mas- Thomas C. Südhof (Stanford a Fellow of the National Academy received the 2013 E. Donnall sachusetts Academy of Sciences. University) of Inventors. Thomas Prize from the American Society of Hematology.

62 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014

James Hynes (University of Colo- Ellen Mosley-Thompson (Ohio James Simons (Euclidean Cap- Margaret Levi (University of rado) has been named a Fellow of State University) and Lonnie ital llc) and Marilyn Simons Washington) has been appointed the American Chemical Society. Thompson (Ohio State Univer- (Simons Foundation) are among Director of the Center for sity) are the recipients of the the recipients of the 2013 Andrew Advanced Study in the Behavioral Tony Kushner (Heat and Light Joseph Sullivant Medal, awarded Carnegie Medals of Philanthropy. Sciences at Stanford University. Company) is among the recipi- by Ohio State University. ents of the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal Larry Squire (University of Cali- Stephen G. Nichols (Johns Hopkins given by Harvard University. Bert O’Malley (Baylor College of fornia, San Diego) received a 2014 University) has been appointed Medicine) received the 2014 Dale Memory and Cognitive Disorder Distinguished Presidential Fellow Spike Lee (40 Acres and a Mule Medal from the Society for Endo- Award from the McKnight Endow- of the Council on Library and Filmworks; New York Univer- crinology. ment Fund for Neuroscience. Information Resources. sity) received the 20th Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. Menahem Pressler (Indiana Uni- Thomas C. Südhof (Stanford Uni- William Nordhaus (Yale Univer- versity) received the University versity) received the 2013 Albert sity) was named Chairman of the Tom Leighton (Massachusetts Medal from Indiana University. Lasker Basic Medical Research Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Institute of Technology; Akamai Award. He shares the award with Technologies) has been named a Chintamani Nagesa Ramach- Richard H. Scheller (Genentech, Robert E. Page, Jr. (Arizona State 2013 Fellow of the Massachusetts andra Rao (Jawaharlal Nehru Inc.). University) has been appointed Academy of Sciences. Centre for Advanced Scientific University Provost at Arizona Research) received the Bharat Subra Suresh (Carnegie Mellon State University. Marsha Lester (University of Penn- Ratna, awarded by the Govern- University) has been elected a sylvania) was awarded the Francis ment of India. member of the Institute of Medi- Thomas F. Rosenbaum (Univer- P. Garvan-John M. Olin Medal. cine and a foreign member of the sity of Chicago) has been named Hunter R. Rawlings III (Associ- Chinese Academy of Sciences. President of the California Insti- Philip Levine (New York Uni- ation of American Universities) tute of Technology. versity) has been awarded the was awarded the James Madison Patricia M. Wald (Washington, Academy of American Poets’ Wal- Medal by Princeton University. D.C.) is the recipient of the 2014 Robert I. Rotberg (Harvard Ken- lace Stevens Award for Lifetime Outstanding Service Award from nedy School; World Peace Foun- Achievement. Deborah L. Rhode (Stanford Law the American Bar Foundation. dation) was appointed a Senior School) is the recipient of the 2014 Fellow at the Centre for Interna- Charles M. Lieber (Harvard Uni- Outstanding Scholar Award from Ernest J. Wilson III (University tional Governance Innovation. versity) received the first Nano the American Bar Foundation. of Southern California) has been Research Award, established by selected as a Fellow of the National Vicki Ruiz (University of Cali- Tsinghua University Press, Springer, John W. Rowe (Columbia Uni- Academy of Public Administration. fornia, Irvine) has been named and the journal Nano Research. versity Mailman School of Pub- President-Elect of the American lic Health) is the recipient of Junying Yuan (Harvard Univer- Historical Association. Stephen J. Lippard (Massachusetts the University of New England sity) received an Agilent Thought Institute of Technology) received College of Osteopathic Medicine Leader Award from Agilent Tech- Marjorie M. Scardino (Pearson) the 2014 Priestley Medal from the 2013–2014 Humanism in Aging nologies Inc. was appointed to the Board of American Chemical Society. Leadership Award. Directors of Twitter. Barbara Liskov (Massachusetts John G. Ruggie (Harvard Ken- Inder M. Verma (The Salk Insti- Institute of Technology) has been nedy School) is the recipient of New Appointments tute) was appointed to the Sci- named a 2013 Fellow of the Mas- the 2014 Global Environment entific Advisory Board of Kite sachusetts Academy of Sciences. Pharma Inc. Award by the International Asso- Jared L. Cohon (Carnegie Mellon Tanya Luhrmann (Stanford Uni- ciation for Impact Assessment. University) has been named to Judy Woodruff (pbs NewsHour) versity) received the 2014 Louisville Maxine Savitz (National Acad- the Carnegie Corporation of New has been named to the Carnegie Grawemeyer Award in Religion. emy of Engineering; Honeywell, York Board of Trustees. Corporation of New York Board of Trustees. Thomas Mallouk (Pennsylva- Inc.) received a Lifetime Achieve- Susan Desmond-Hellmann (Uni- nia State University) has been ment Award from the U.S. Clean versity of California, San Fran- selected as a Fellow of the Ameri- Energy Education and Empower- cisco) has been named Chief can Chemical Society. ment (c3e) program. Executive Officer of the Bill and Select Publications Lynne E. Maquat (University of Richard H. Scheller (Genentech, Melinda Gates Foundation. Rochester School of Medicine Inc.) received the 2013 Albert Lasker Brian J. Druker (Oregon Health & Poetry and Dentistry) is the recipient Basic Medical Research Award. He Science University) was appointed of the 2014 Athena Award, given shares the award with Thomas C. to the Scientific Advisory Board of Renato Rosaldo (New York Uni- by the Women’s Council of the Südhof (Stanford University). Cell Therapeutics, Inc. versity). The Day of Shelly’s Death: Rochester Business Alliance. The Poetry and Ethnography of Grief. Myron Scholes (Stamos Part- Stephen Fienberg (Carnegie Mel- ners; Stanford University; Plat- Duke University Press, January Robert C. Merton (Massachusetts lon University) has been named 2014 Institute of Technology) received inum Grove Asset Management) to the National Commission on the 2013 wfe Award for Excel- received the 2013 wfe Award for Forensic Science. lence. He shares the prize with Excellence. He shares the prize Myron Scholes (Stamos Partners; with Robert C. Merton (Massa- Stanford University; Platinum chusetts Institute of Technology). Grove Asset Management).

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 63 noteworthy

Fiction Sheldon Danziger (University of Stephen M. Kosslyn (The Min- Ingrid D. Rowland (University of Michigan) and Martha J. Bailey erva Project) and G. Wayne Notre Dame). From Pompeii: The Jerry Pinkney (Jerry Pinkney Stu- (University of Michigan), eds. Miller (The Providence Journal). Afterlife of a Roman Town. Harvard dio). The Tortoise & the Hare. Little, Legacies of the War on Poverty. Rus- Top Brain, Bottom Brain: Surprising University Press, March 2014 Brown Books, October 2013 sell Sage, July 2013 Insights into How You Think. Simon & Schuster, November 2013 Elaine Scarry (Harvard University). Anna Quindlen (New York, New Veena Das (Johns Hopkins Uni- Thermonuclear Monarchy: Choosing York). Still Life with Bread Crumbs. versity), Arthur Kleinman (Har- Madeleine M. Kunin (Univer- Between Democracy and Doom. W.W. Random House, January 2014 vard University), Michael Jackson sity of Vermont) and Jennifer Norton, February 2014 (Harvard Divinity School), and Baumgardner (The Feminist Bhrigupati Singh (King’s College Press at cuny), eds. We Do! Amer- Laurence Senelick (Tufts Univer- London). The Ground Between: ican Leaders Who Believe in Marriage sity) and Sergei Ostrovsky (Taba- Nonfiction Anthropologists Engage Philosophy. Equality. Akashic Books, Novem- kov Theater-Studio). The Soviet Theater: A Documentary History. Bruce Ackerman (Yale Univer- Duke University Press, May 2014 ber 2013 Yale University Press, June 2014 sity). We the People, Volume 3: The David Brion Davis (Yale Univer- Bruno Latour (Institut d’Etudes Civil Rights Revolution. Harvard sity). The Problem of Slavery in the Politiques). An Inquiry into Modes Ian Shapiro (Yale University) and University Press, March 2014 Age of Emancipation. Knopf, Febru- of Existence: An Anthropology of Joseph Lampert (Portland State University). Charter of the United Kwame Anthony Appiah (New ary 2014 the Moderns. Harvard University Nations: Together with Scholarly York University). Lines of Descent: Press, July 2013 Denis Donoghue (New York Uni- Commentaries and Essential Historical W.E.B. Du Bois and the Emergence of versity). Metaphor. Harvard Uni- Alan Lightman (Massachusetts Documents. Yale University Press, Identity. Harvard University Press, versity Press, April 2014 Institute of Technology). The April 2014 February 2014 Accidental Universe: The World You John Dunn (King’s College, Cam- Werner Sollors (Harvard Uni- David Bromwich (Yale Univer- Thought You Knew. Pantheon, Jan- bridge). Breaking Democracy’s Spell. versity). The Temptation of Despair: sity). The Intellectual Life of Edmund uary 2014 Yale University Press, July 2014 Tales of the 1940s. Harvard Univer- Burke. Harvard University Press, Lawrence Manley (Yale Univer- sity Press, April 2014 May 2014 Robert A. Ferguson (Columbia sity) and Sally-Beth MacLean University). Inferno: An Anatomy of Charles Taylor (McGill Univer- Peter Brooks (Princeton Univer- (University of Toronto). Lord American Punishment. Harvard Uni- sity). Dilemmas and Connections. Har- sity) and Hilary Jewett (Princeton Strange’s Men and Their Plays. Yale versity Press, March 2014 vard University Press, April 2014 University). The Humanities and University Press, April 2014 Public Life. Fordham University Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Harvard Jerome McGann (University of Billie Tsien (Tod Williams Billie Press, March 2014 University) and David Bindman Virginia). A New Republic of Letters: Tsien Architects, llp) and Tod (University College London), eds. Williams (Tod Williams Billie Jonathan Brown (New York Uni- Memory and Scholarship in the Age of The Image of the Black in Western Art, Tsien Architects, llp). Wunder- versity). In the Shadow of Velázquez: Digital Reproduction. Harvard Uni- Volume V: The Twentieth Century, kammer. Yale University Press, A Life in Art History. Yale University versity Press, March 2014 Part 1: The Impact of Africa. Harvard December 2013 Press, June 2014 University Press, February 2014 Svante Pääbo (Max-Planck-Insti- James Wei (Princeton Univer- John Browne (Royal Academy of tut für evolutionäre Anthropolo- Greg Grandin (New York Uni- sity). Great Inventions that Changed Engineering). Seven Elements That gie). Neanderthal Man: In Search of versity). The Empire of Necessity: the World. John Wiley Company, Changed the World: An Adventure of Lost Genomes. Basic Books, Febru- Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the July 2012 Ingenuity and Discovery. Pegasus ary 2014 New World. Metropolitan Books, Books, February 2014 January 2014 Charles Parsons (Harvard Uni- Tod Williams (Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, llp) and Caroline Bruzelius (Duke Univer- versity). Philosophy of Mathematics Christopher P. Jones (Harvard Billie Tsien (Tod Williams Billie sity). Preaching, Building, and Bury- in the Twentieth Century. Harvard University). Between Pagan and Tsien Architects, llp). Wunder- ing: Friars in the Medieval City. Yale University Press, March 2014 Christian. Harvard University kammer. Yale University Press, University Press, June 2014 Press, March 2014 Henry Petroski (Duke Univer- December 2013 Lawrence Buell (Harvard Univer- sity). The House with Sixteen Hand- George Kateb (Princeton Univer- Garry Wills (Northwestern Uni- sity). The Dream of the Great Amer- made Doors: A Tale of Architectural sity). Human Dignity. Harvard Uni- versity). Making Make-Believe Real: ican Novel. Harvard University Choice and Craftsmanship. W.W. versity Press, March 2014 Politics as Theater in Shakespeare’s Time. Press, February 2014 Norton, May 2014 Yale University Press, June 2014 Arthur Kleinman (Harvard Uni- Gerhard Casper (Stanford Uni- Robert C. Post (Yale Law School). versity), Veena Das (Johns Hop- versity). The Winds of Freedom: Citizens Divided: Campaign Finance kins University), Michael Jackson Addressing Challenges to the Univer- Reform and the Constitution. Harvard We invite all Fellows and (Harvard Divinity School), and sity. Yale University Press, Febru- University Press, June 2014 Bhrigupati Singh (King’s College For­eign Honorary Members ary 2014 London). The Ground Between: Stanley B. Prusiner (University to send notices about their Keith Christiansen (Metropol- Anthropologists Engage Philosophy. of California, San Francisco). recent and forthcoming pub­ itan Museum of Art). Piero della Duke University Press, May 2014 Madness and Memory: The Discovery lications, scienti½c ½ndings, Francesca: Personal Encounters. Yale of Prions–A New Biological Principle exhibitions and performances, University Press, February 2014 of Disease. Yale University Press, and honors and prizes to April 2014 bulletin@ama­cad.org. n

64 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2014 Norton’s Woods, 136 Irving Street, Cambridge, ma 02138 telephone 617-576-5000, facsimile 617-576-5050, email [email protected], website www.amacad.org board of directors Bulletin Winter 2014 Issued as Volume lxvii, No. 2 Don M. Randel, Chair of the Board © 2014 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Diane P. Wood, Chair of the Council; Vice Chair of the Board Alan M. Dachs, Chair of the Trust; Vice Chair of the Board The Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (issn 0002–712X) is published quarterly by the American Jerrold Meinwald, Secretary Academy of Arts & Sciences, 136 Irving Street, Cambridge, Carl H. Pforzheimer III, Treasurer MA 02138. Periodicals rate postage paid at Boston, MA, and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send Nancy C. Andrews address changes to Bulletin, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 136 Irving Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. David B. Frohnmayer The views expressed in the Bulletin are those held by each Helene L. Kaplan contributor and are not necessarily those of the Board Nannerl O. Keohane of Directors and Members of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Roger B. Myerson Venkatesh Narayanamurti photo credits Samuel O. Thier Martha Stewart pages 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 17, Pauline Yu 36–37, 39, 41–42, Louis W. Cabot, Chair Emeritus 44–45, 47–48, 50–51, 53, 55, 58 University of Texas page 11 publications advisory board at Arlington Jerrold Meinwald and John Mark Hansen, Cochairs; Gail Oskin Photography pages 22–24, 26, 28 Jesse H. Choper, Denis Donoghue, Gerald L. Early, Carol Gluck, Sibyl Golden, Linda Greenhouse, Global Relations Forum page 31 John Hildebrand, Jerome Kagan, Philip Khoury, Steven Marcus, Eric J. Sundquist editorial staff Phyllis S. Bendell, Director of Publications Micah J. Buis, Associate Director of Publications Peter Walton, Senior Editorial Assistant Scott Raymond, Layout & Design american academy of arts & sciences Norton’s Woods 136 Irving Street Cambridge, ma 02138-1996 usa telephone 617-576-5000 facsimile 617-576-5050 email aaas @ amacad . org website www . amacad . org american academy of arts & sciences bulletin winter 2014