Doris Sommer

Doris Sommer is the Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies, also in Social Studies. She is founder of "Cultural Agents," an Initiative at Harvard and an NGO dedicated to reviving the civic mission of the Humanities. Her academic and outreach work promotes development through arts and humanities worldwide, specifically through the “Arts and Policy Certificate,” for city governments to discover how participatory arts address urgent challenges; and “Pre-Texts,” a train the trainers program to support democracy through literacy, critical thinking, and creativity. Among her books are Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (1991) about novels that helped to build new nations; Proceed with Caution when Engaged by Minority Literature (1999) on the difference positionality makes; Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education (2004) for our times of contested immigration; and The Work of Art in the World: Civic Agency and Public Humanities (2014). Director of Cultural Agents, and member of: David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies; American Studies; Ethnicity Migration, Rights; Public Service; Public Health; Mittal Institute for South Asia Studies, Bloomberg Center for Cities, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Sommer has enjoyed and is dedicated to developing good public-school education. She has a B.A. from New Jersey's Douglass College for Women, and Ph.D. from Rutgers University.

See Prof. Sommer's talk: "Cultural Agents All" from Harvard Thinks Big

RENAISSANCE NOW - Art is our Renewable Human Resource

Renaissance Now, Co-founder, see  http://renaissancenow-cai.org/

Announcements: 

• launching of the "Arts and Policy City Certificate" in Mannheim, Asuncion, and Santiago
• New Freshmen seminar "The 'Ignorant Schoolmaster' and the Experts'' (Fall 2022)
• New cultural Agents project: "Renaissance Now"

Contact faculty for details

Recent Publications:
-“The Pre-Texts Protocol: Promoting Flourishing Through Collective Creative Engagement,” with Pier Luigi Sacco, Valeria Pica, Open Science Framework, September 2025 DOI:10.31235/osf.io/rxfwa_v1

-*Osborn, T. L., , D., Mutiso, V., Sacco, P. L., & Sommer, D. (2022, May 24). An Arts-Literacy Intervention for Adolescent Depression and Anxiety Symptoms: Outcomes of a Randomized Controlled Trial of Pre-Texts with Kenyan Adolescents.  https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/7cywv

-“Doubt: On Sparring and Sociability." In Theory & Event, Johns Hopkins 2024 https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/917792

-Cambiar la coreografía de las aulas  El País, nov 2023 

-Caminos de paz https://elpais.com/america-colombia/2024-02-08/caminos-de-paz.html feb 2024

-"Enjoying Differences" with Olatz Etxebarria-Pérez-de-Nanclares, Ana Luisa López-Vélez, Rakel Gamito-Gómez y Doris Sommer. Chapter 8 of Investigación para la mejora de las prácticas educativas desde una perspectiva holística, editors Blanca Berral Ortiz, José Antonio Martínez Domingo, Carmen Rocío Fernández, Juan José Victoria Maldonado (Madrid, 2024 Editorial Dykinson, S.L.) pp. 109-124

Videos: Harvard Thinks Big 4, Doris Sommer on "Cultural Agents All", Universidad de Bogotá Jose Tadeo Lozano, 2012 Latino Leadership Initiative