Don Kulick elected a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences is prestigious, and very few academics from Sweden are elected. Don Kulick, a specially recruited professor at the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology at Uppsala University, is now the sixth researcher ever elected from our University and the third from the Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences. This distinction not only recognises his outstanding academic achievements, but also highlights the wider impact his work has had within and beyond the world of academia.

Congratulations Don Kulick, but can you tell us that the American Academy of Arts & Sciences actually is?
“It’s an academy that promotes independent research and democratic values – something that feels especially important today. It was founded back in 1780 by a group of prominent intellectuals, politicians and scientists who wanted to build institutions that would gather knowledge for the new American Republic,” says Don Kulick, who is currently doing ethnographic fieldwork in Australia and Papua New Guinea. “The Academy recognises significant contributions in fields that include the arts, humanities, social sciences and natural sciences.”

Induction ceremony in October 2026

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences is both a society that honours its distinguished members for their outstanding achievements and an independent research centre. In the 246 years that the Academy has existed, a total of 14,500 people from the United States and beyond have been elected members. The research centre convenes leaders from different disciplines and fields to work together on major challenges nationally and worldwide, “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people”. (Quote from website)

Have you received any special duties within the Academy?
“I’ve only recently said yes, so I don’t know what duties might be involved,” says Don Kulick. “There will be an induction ceremony in October 2026 and I hope to find out more about how the Academy works then.”

Especially significant

The news of his election came as a complete surprise.

What do you think this membership means for you and your work – and by extension for Uppsala University?
“It was unexpected and unsought and that makes it especially significant for me,” says Don Kulick. “Since learning that I had been elected, I have done some research and understood that the election process is both complex and protracted. Far from all nominees are elected, so I feel especially and particularly honoured. I hope that my colleagues and students at Uppsala University can also enjoy this recognition. Many of them have played important roles in my own research through the Engaging Vulnerability research programme that I established in Uppsala in 2015 and most recently in my ERC Advanced Grant research project on social invisibility.”

Ulrika Hurtig