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Doris Sommer

Ira Jewell Williams, Jr., Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and in African and African American Studies
On Leave 2009-2010

Office: Boylston Hall 417
Phone: (617) 495-5273
Fax: (617) 496-4682
E-mail: dsommer@fas.harvard.edu
Office hours: On leave 2009-2010

Academic degrees: A.B., Douglas College, NJ; M.A., Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Ph.D., Rutgers University

Research Interests: 19th-Century Narrative in Latin American Women's Literature; Ethnic Literature; Bilingual Aesthetics

an edited collection of 20 essays by leading scholars on the aesthetics and politics of bilingualism.

an edited collection of 23 essays by a range of leading and junior social scientists and humanists to explore the 'Wiggle Room' (my title for the introduction) between the cracks of globalization.

discovers an intimate, mutually constructive relationship between modern heterosexuality and patriotism. Freely chosen and productive passionate alliances seemed 'natural' to defenders of laissez-faire, and were the basis for legitimating national independence where those alliances could prosper. And, conversely, the fate of the nation was so sublime a goal that it seemed the natural goad to making passionate alliances. In one country after another, including Brazil with its very peculiar history, the generation between 1850 and 1880 produced national novels that are still required reading in their respective countries. They are part of a civic education, where teenagers learn that passion and patriotism go together, that decent citizens make alliances across class, race, and regional lines in productive rebellion against colonial and corporatist practices. The book speculates generally on the mutual construction of marital love (a modern literary invention, to follow Foucault) and collective dreams of national community (to follow Anderson). Sex and nation are not separable, despite the narrow focus of other speculators on modernity. Together they draw readers into shared personal desires and public dreams of social coherence and economic prosperity.

a sequel to Proceed with Caution, attends to code-switching as a specific kind of rhetorical gate-keeper. If you haven't yet been wondering about the ways that bilingualism can
improve a range of private and public moves-in aesthetics, politics, and philosophy (not to mention business and commerce)-let's take some time out together. What if I said that an extra language, beyond a coordinating lingua franca, promotes personal development, fair procedure, and effective education, while one-way assimilation derails progress on all counts? Would you be curious about the arguments and perhaps willing to change your mind if bilingualism had seemed irrelevant or even damaging? I hope you are willing, and I offer this book as an invitation to consider the cultural conditions for fair and fulfilling contemporary life. This book is about added value, not about remediation. More than one language is a supplement, not a deficiency. It is a dangerous supplement to monolingualism, whether the addition amounts to two languages or to many. Bilingualism overloads mono systems; and multilingualism does it more. But in principle bi- and multilingualism make similar mischief with meaning. The underlyng goal of thinking about these overloads as intellectual, artistic, and ethical enhancements will be to open public debates beyond the failing standard of monolingual assimilation. Throughout this book, Iaddress the enhancements in the most theoretically sophisticated terms I can muster, but in plain language. Partly the gambit is to demonstrate that theory is practically second nature to bilinguals who normally abstract expression from meaning; and partly the range of refinements that follow from the 'open sesame' of bilingual readings means to persuade some readers that bilingualism is intellectually advantageous. Others will know that already.

Prof. Sommer is Director of the Cultural . Click here to view Professor Sommer's curriculum vitae.

Recent Books:
Cultural Agency in the Americas, edited by Doris Sommer. Duke University Press, 2005.

Abrazos Y Rechazos Como Leer En Clave Menor. Fondo De Cultura Económica , 2005.

Bilingual Games: Some Literary Investigations, edited by Doris Sommer. Palgrave, 2004.

Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education. Duke University Press, 2004.

Ficciones Fundacionales. Fondo De Cultura Económica , 2004.

Ficções de fundação: os romances nacionais da América Latina. Editora UFMG, 2004.

Proceed with Caution, When Engaged by Minority Writing in the Americas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America. University of California Press, 1993.

In the News:

"How I'll Spend my Summer Vacation" The Harvard Gazette, June 9, 2005

Courses Offered in 2009-2010: On leave

Other Courses Offered:
[Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding 13 (formerly Spanish 180). Cultural Agents (under General Education)]
[Romance Studies 202. Ethics and Aesthetics (Graduate Seminar in General Education) (co-taught with Francesco Erspamer)]
[Spanish 65. Bilingual Arts]
[Spanish 186. Tobacco and Sugar]
[Spanish 243. Foundational Fiction and Film]
[STAR E-130. Youth Arts for Social Change (Extension School)]

For more information, go to the RLL course catalogue.

Return to meet Department faculty.

Last updated on July 17, 2009

Doris Sommer

Ira Jewell Williams, Jr., Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and in African and African American Studies On Leave 2009-2010

Ira Jewell Williams, Jr., Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and in African and African American Studies
On Leave 2009-2010