On June 26, the workshop “Educating in Culture and Serving with Trust” was led by Professors Doris Sommer (Harvard University) and Victoria Mena (Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano), and brought together 40 public servants from 15 departments of Bogotá’s City Hall. During this session, participants discovered close reading as key to understanding complex texts and one another. By pausing to examine two pages from Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) they experience the civic effect of starting with questions rather than summaries. Remembering the program of civic culture led by Mayor Antanas Mockus, another effect was general admiration for each of the participants including oneself.
