Doris Sommer

Doris Sommer is Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, African and African American Studies, and Social Studies at Harvard University, where she is also Associate of the Bloomberg Center for Cities, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and the Mittal Institute for South Asia. Sommer grew up in a mostly Puerto Rican immigrant neighborhood of Brownsville, Brooklyn, NYC, which fostered her appreciation for cosmopolitan – multilingual and adaptive - identities.  Her childhood among people of various backgrounds demonstrated how culture can connect people or keep them apart. In response, her career as an academic and activist is dedicated to reviving the civic mission of the Humanities: to develop appreciation for beauty, interpretive agility, and admiration for various perspectives. Resisting the pall of pessimism that characterizes many academic environments, she founded the “[https://sites.harvard.edu/cultural-agents Cultural Agents Initiative]” at Harvard and its public-facing NGO [https://culturalagents.org Cultural Agents Inc]. Combining academic and outreach work Cultural Agents has developed a range of activities with two principal programs: “[https://renaissancenow-cai.org/wp/arts-and-policy/ The Arts and Policy Certificate]” -- for cities to engage participatory arts as practical resources for addressing complex challenges -- and the “[https://pre-texts.org/ Pre-Texts]” pedagogy. This train-the-trainers protocol, with decades of practice in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, enlists local arts to stimulate literacy, critical thinking, and citizenship in classrooms and in boardrooms [For details about the methodology and archives country by country, consult the website]. A new program, “[https://www.pilgrimsfortheplanet.org/ Pilgrims for the Planet]” – with pilot projects in Nuquí, Colombia, and Ahmadabad, India -- affects hearts and minds of decision-makers who accompany scholars and local leaders on walks to witness contamination and deforestation.

Among Sommer’s books are ''Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America'' (1991) about novels that helped to consolidate new republics; ''Proceed with Caution when Engaged by Minority Literature'' (1999) on a rhetoric of particularism; ''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).

Sommer has enjoyed and promotes good public-school education, including the public-facing Pre-Texts program for LASA (Latin American Studies Association). She has a B.A. from New Jersey's Douglass College for Women, and Ph.D. from Rutgers the State University. Her distinctions include a Guggenheim Award (1994), membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 2025), and a doctorate Honoris Causa from the Universidad de Oviedo (2026). ---- [DS1]Vincular solo Harvard University, azul subrayado.

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