Cultural Agents and Creative Economies: Arts, Policy and Civic Imagination

Research Seminar - Organised by the Department of Art History and Cultural Practices, University of Manchester

Cultural Agents and Creative Economies: Arts, Policy and Civic Imagination

Professor Doris Sommer, Harvard University & Hallsworth Visiting Professor, UoM; and Dr Leandro Valiati, University of Manchester

Abstract

How can arts and creative industries move from being “nice-to-have” to acting as real infrastructure for democracy, development and everyday life?

In this joint seminar, Professor Doris Sommer (Harvard / Cultural Agents) and Dr Leandro Valiati (UoM) will explore the intersections between cultural agency and the political economy of creative industries. Drawing on Sommer’s work with Cultural Agents and Pre-Texts—arts-based programmes that link aesthetic play with literacy, critical thinking and civic engagement—and Valiati’s research on measuring and governing CCIs in Brazil, Latin America and Europe, the session asks how creative practices can both transform institutions and reshape public policy.

Through short talks and an open conversation, the speakers will discuss:

• how artistic experiments become public policy tools,
• how CCIs can be valued beyond GDP,
• and what a Global South–North dialogue on cultural policy might look like in practice.

Biographies

Professor Doris Sommer (Harvard University & Hallsworth Visiting Professor, UoM) – Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies; founder and Director of the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard, and creator of Pre-Texts, an arts-based literacy and civic education programme used in schools and communities across the Americas and beyond. sites.harvard.edu+

Dr Leandro Valiati (University of Manchester) – Senior Lecturer in Cultural & Creative Industries, Programme Director MA/BA Creative & Cultural Industries; specialist in the political economy of CCIs, cultural policy and creative industries development with a focus on Global South–North relations.

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Host or Publisher Department of Art History and Cultural Practices