Linguists, philosophers, anthropologists, historians, and literary scholars were among the many attendees of the American Council of Learned Societies’ annual meeting this weekend in Philadelphia. The ACLS, whose office is based in Manhattan, is a nonprofit federation of 68 national scholarly organizations.

Where else can delegates of organizations such as the American Dialect Society and the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study rub shoulders with those from the Dictionary Society of North America, the Society for the History of Technology, or the Society for Ethnomusicology? During panels, lectures, and receptions, delegates from the constituent learned societies as well as affiliates, associate institutions, and other participants shared ideas about how to strengthen humanities scholarship in America.

Selected ACLS fellows offered reports on their work. These included Columbia University english and comparative literature professor Nicholas Dames, who had been awarded a Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship in 2004. Mr. Dames said one trend in literary scholarship had been moving away from examining the production (“who wrote it”) of works to the consumption (“who read it”). Reading and its histories were gaining increased scholarly attention, he said.

Before lunch, ACLS President Pauline Yu delivered her presidential report. She opened by reading Emily Dickinson’s poem “I Stepped From Plank to Plank,” which she had seen on a New York City subway, as part of the Poetry Society of America’s “Poetry in Motion” program.

National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Bruce Cole spoke on Friday at lunch, offering an overview that included discussion of “We the People,” an NEH initiative aimed at strengthening the understanding of American history and culture.

Among the New Yorkers in attendance were the director of the New York Public Library’s humanities and social science library, Heike Kordish; Columbia University professor Andrew Delbanco; and art historian and critic Irving Sandler, representing the International Art Critics Association.

An afternoon panel addressed the subject of the humanities and its publics. Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation president Robert Weisbuch, who assumes the presidency of Drew University on July 1, said there had been a culture boom in this country and urged those teaching the humanities to “get out there and win the world.”

A divinity school professor from the University of Chicago, Jean Bethke Elshtain, described the perils faced by public intellectuals. One pitfall, she said, included becoming more and more public and less and less intellectual.

She recalled Julian Huxley speaking in 1959, when she was a student at Colorado State University. Huxley, she said to audience amusement, had predicted that by the year 2000, nationalism and religion would be en route to disappearing.

***

SMART TALK

What list of invitees includes someone studying the role of the bicycle in world culture, another researching sugar making and the destiny of Vermont, and a scientist studying the feasibility of all-silicon lasers?

The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation invited its 2005 fellows last week for drinks and hors d’oeuvres at its New York office. They engaged in stimulating conversation with winners from previous decennial years (1995, 1985, 1975, and so forth).

The New York Sun spoke with choreographer David Dorfman, whose company has a week performance with Frank London of the Klezmatics beginning May 31 at the Joyce theater. Mr. Dorfman described his style of dance as “very physical.” A cluster of writers included Bennington College professor and poet Henri Cole as well as Peter Gizzi. The Sun also talked with Cincinnati resident John Fleischman, who is a science writer with the Midwest office of the American Society for Cell Biology. A few years ago he wrote “Phineas Gage: A Gruesome But True Story About Brain Science” (Houghton Mifflin), a children’s book about a Vermont man whose skull was penetrated by a 13-pound iron rod. Mr. Fleischman’s next project? A children’s book about animals that have won the Nobel Prize. Pressed for details, Mr. Fleischman said more precisely that the book was about genome science and involved mice, worms, and other animals.