Pre-Text Workshop with Prof. Doris Sommer and IV SAB

On October 13, Professor Doris Sommer, the Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, led a workshop for the Intellectual Vitality Student Advisory Board and invited faculty members, focusing on Pre-Texts, an innovative pedagogical methodology that combines close reading, artistic experimentation and collaborative learning. “The true goal of the methodology is to inculcate a desire to return to the text,” Professor Sommer said. 

By working on an excerpt from Hannah Arendt’s lectures on the political philosophy of Immanuel Kant, participants were able to experience how a challenging philosophical text can lead to creative exploration and intellectual discovery. Rather than approaching reading as a passive exercise in extracting and absorbing information, participants were given the chance to treat the text differently. For instance, they were instructed to pose questions to the text—anonymously which reduces anxiety about being censured—rather than to one another. This offers the reader the ability to return to the text again and again to gain deeper learning directly from it and from the variety of perspectives among participants. Moreover, through this unique pedagogical method led by Professor Sommer, participants witnessed the transformation of texts into artistic projects.