Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated Press Sally FieldLast year, Sally Field won an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln. This weekend, she'll be making a turn as another first lady, Abigail Adams.
The occasion will be a ceremony marking her induction, along with some 200 other luminaries, into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation's most prestigious learned societies, based in Cambridge, Mass. Other honorees this year include Herbie Hancock, Martin Amis, Roz Chast, Natasha Trethewey and Ken Burns - who will be standing in for John Adams, the academy's founder, in a dramatic reading of letters with Ms. Field.
The three-day event will also include the presentation of the Emerson-Thoreau Medal, to Philip Roth, another new member, and an award for humanistic studies to the literary critics Helen Vendler and Denis Donoghue, as well as scholarly talks by five new inductees, including the psychologist Alison Gopnik and the historian Paula Fredriksen.
The academy, founded in 1780, honors distinguished achievement in all branches of academia, as well as business, philanthropy, publishing and the arts. It has been without a leader since July, when its president, Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, resigned following reports that she had falsely claimed, on grant applications and other documents, to hold a doctorate. A spokesman for the academy said that it would soon announce a new board, which would begin a search for a new president.
