Research Assistant Position: Effects of Pleasure in Learning on Adolescent Depression
Prof. Doris Sommer and Tom Osborn, Pre-Texts Program, Cultural Agents Initiative / Romance Languages and Literatures & African and African American Studies/FAS
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This work is part of Pre-Texts, a program in the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard. In this specific study, 450 adolescents in a slum of Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya will participate in afterschool arts-literacy program to determine if pleasure in learning has therapeutic effects on clinically depressed students. Responsibilities: Help conduct Research on relationship among learning, pleasure, depression, generate annotated bibliography, and help to chart process in Nairobi. Additional Information: This is an unpaid position, but available for independent study course credit. Work can be done online and in virtual contact with the Nairobi team. Doris Sommer is the Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, and African and African American Studies, and directs Cultural Agents (culturalagents.org) and Pre-Texts (pre-texts.org). Tom Osborn, Harvard 2020, local supervisor for our MBB funded research in Nairobi, Kenya will co-supervise work. To Apply: Write to Doris Sommer at dsommer@fas.harvard.edu. (posted 8/2021)