8 inducted to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Eight members of the University faculty were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academy announced Tuesday. A total of 212 new members were inducted this year.

Members of the Academy, which is one of the most prestigious honorary societies in the nation, are selected based on their accomplishments as leaders in academia, business, public affairs, the humanities and the arts.

The University members include geosciences professor William J. Morgan, mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Howard Stone, computer science professor Edward Felten, Wilson School professor Roland Benabou, Wilson School professor Thomas Romer, philosophy professor Daniel Garber, German professor emeritus Stanley Corngold and visual arts professor P. Adams Sitney.

Also named to the Academy was Nobel Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, who spent the last semester as the University’s 2010 distinguished visitor in the Program in Latin American Studies and the Class of 1932 visiting lecturer in the Program in Creative Writing.

Faculty members expressed excitement and surprise regarding their selection.

“It’s always elating to have one’s work acknowledged,” Corngold explained in an email. Corngold, whose work focuses on modern German literature and thought, is currently finishing a critical edition of Goethe’s “The Sufferings of Young Werther” containing his own fresh translation.

His subsequent project, a book titled “The Romantic Quest,” will draw from his experiences teaching a course at the University and will include “splendid input” from his students, he said.

“Being elected to the Academy encourages me to keep to my task,” Corngold added.

Garber said in an email that he was “delighted” and “somewhat surprised” to be named to AAAS, though he said he did not expect the honor to affect his work, which focuses on the history of philosophy.

“I think of myself as a kind of intellectual tourist, interested in understanding people who lived and thought differently than we do,” Garber said.

Benabou, whose current work focuses on behavioral economics, said in an email that he believed the award could enhance his research.

“The AAAS recognition may help further legitimize this area of work, which is still relatively new and sometimes still meets with resistance in some parts of our profession,” Benabou explained.

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Stone, who noted that the honor came as a “pleasant surprise,” said in an email that he had a personal connection to the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.

“My wife and I, on the morning of our wedding day, took a quiet walk there, so the space does mean something a little extra special to me,” he said.

Stone also noted that he is eager to become an active member of the society.

“I am looking forward to learning about the activities of the Academy and to contributing to some of their projects,” Stone said. “I can imagine that such projects will broaden my thinking and expose me to new ideas, which is always interesting and challenging.”

Sitney, Romer, Morgan and Felten could not be reached for comment.

AAAS was founded in 1780 with the purpose of cultivating “every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous people,” according to its website.

Today it serves both as an honorary society and a leading independent policy research center.

This year’s members will be inducted into the Academy at a ceremony on Oct. 1.