Arts and Leadership dinner
The Harvard Club of France is thrilled to be launching a new series of dinners looking at the intersection of the arts and leadership.
The first event launches with a presentation by Harvard Professor Doris Sommer, to present her work with Pre-Texts and Renaissance Now, an Arts and Policy certificate for cities. In her work, Doris is training city mayors to work with their cabinets to use the arts as a way to solve social problems within their communities.
Doris will be joined by her colleague, Rainer Kern, who has implemented Doris’ model in the German city of Mannheim and who is himself also a radical innovator in how the arts can be applied to challenges facing governments at a local level.
Doris Sommer is Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American 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, specifically through “Pre-Texts,” a world-wide arts-based literacy program, and “Renaissance Now,” an interdisciplinary collaboration to promote political and scientific leadership through the arts.
Rainer Kern, Special Advisor Global Affairs, Mannheim, Germany. Rainer is the Festival Director and Artistic Director of the biggest German Jazz Festival, “Enjoy Jazz – International Festival for Jazz and More,” which he also founded in 1999. As the Representative of the Executive Mayor of Mannheim and his Special Advisor Global and UN Affairs he is responsible for the setup and strategic development of the new worldwide network/platform “Global Parliament of Mayors” (GPM) which was launched in 2016.
Event organizer and moderator
Caroline Watson (Alumni of the Kennedy School’s programme on Global Leadership and Public Policy) is the founder of The Centre for the Arts and Global Leadership that seeks to empower the ‘higher order’ potential of current and future leaders through engagement with the arts. The Centre has a retreat space and impact hub, Clos de Gaye, in south west France, that brings together global leaders, artists, social entrepreneurs and visionaries, in projects that intersect the arts and social change to bring about positive impact in our world. Learn more at www.artsandleadership.com.
What to expect
The event will include presentations by Professor Sommer and Rainer Kern on the project, followed by a two-course dinner, to include a facilitated discussion on implementing Doris’ model in France, the larger implications for the role of the arts in leadership and policy making, and exploring possible connections with Harvard Club of France.
Registration: Only 20 seats available! 45 Euros for 2 courses and a shared bottle of wine. Additional drinks paid for by participants.
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