Doris Sommer is Ira Jewell Williams, Jr. Professor of Romance Languages and Literature, and Director of Graduate Studies in Spanish. Her interests include: 19th-century narrative in Latin American women's literature, ethnic literature, and bilingual aesthetics.  She is the author of Billingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education (2004), Proceed with Caution, When Engaged by Minority Writing in the Americas (1999), and Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (1993).  She is the editor of Cultural Agency in the Americas (2005) and Billingual Games: Some Literary Investigations (2004).  Professor Sommer is also Director of the Cultural Agents Initiative.