Doris Sommer

rdf:langString Doris Sommer

rdf:langString Doris Sommer (born January 15, 1947) is a literature scholar. She is Ira Jewell Williams, Jr., Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She is also Director of the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard. Sommer received her PhD from Rutgers University. In 1994, she was a Guggenheim fellow in Latin America literature. In February 2022, Sommer was one of 38 Harvard faculty to sign a letter to the Harvard Crimson defending Professor John Comaroff, who had been found to have violated the university's sexual and professional conduct policies. The letter defended Comaroff as "an excellent colleague, advisor and committed university citizen" and expressed dismay over his being sanctioned by the university. After students filed a lawsuit with detailed allegations of Comaroff's actions and the university's failure to respond, Sommer was one of several signatories to say that she wished to retract her signature.