At the 2025 Ife Institute of Advanced Studies, in Osun State, Nigeria, convened by Professor Jacob Olupona and attended by academics throughout Nigeria, Doris Sommer and Sunday Ukaewen previewed Pre-Texts. Sunday is ABD in Music at Harvard University. After a first session to present “Pedagogical Innovation for Deep Literacy,” Sommer and Ukaewen facilitated a workshop with music using a fragment of Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Participants asked questions and linked music samples with sentences from the text. “What did we do?” Reflections included: “Having to ask a question made me pay close attention to the text.” Another responded that “anonymity allowed us to ask and answer freely.” “Reading with music heightened the emotional connection to the text.” Participants were introduced not only to a new way of engaging a challenging text but also to a new way of thinking collectively—through questions, answers, and even creatively, through sound. Next year a full training in Pre-Texts will be programmed for the Ife Institute.
