The goal of this working group is to initiate a broadly interdisciplinary, campus-wide conversation about the histories, multifarious forms, complex dynamics, and social impacts of writing systems in the broadest sense. The group's inquiry focuses on cultural technologies of notation—from the various ways of writing different languages (logographic, alphabetic, etc.), music and math notation, semasiography, khipus, pictographs, all the way to computer programming and AI. Members will be comparing diverse types of notations and ask how they differ functionally from each other.

To learn more about this working group, please contact its director, Sabine Gölz, at sabine-golz@uiowa.edu.

Cabeza de Vaca was part of a Conquistador expedition to Florida in 1527 that went awry, and a long travail followed, leaving four survivors who eventually made it to Mexico City eight years later. Cabeza de Vaca comes to understand that maybe the Spanish should be partnering with indigenous people instead of enslaving them, and becomes something of an amateur anthropologist along the way, leaving a journal account of the long journey. 

This working group is interested in trying to give voice to the Moorish slave who was on the expedition and to Cabeza de Vaca's wife, Maria Marmolejo, a Sephardic Jewish convert, who was reunited with him after falling destitute when he was presumed dead. The group would like to create a work of historical fiction, as these parts of the story have no voice or literary narrative in the accounts. The group is also interested in learning about the indigenous native Americans and imagining what kinds of interactions the survivors had with them.

Rapson's current musical research has been spent investigating the influences of Moors, Sephardic Jews, Romany Gypsies, the Spanish renaissance, flamenco and New World folk traditions. He intends to assemble a large ensemble of UI colleagues and professional musicians to record the work in a studio method similar to the production of earlier albums where improvisations were turned into compositions. The mix will include "classical" and "popular" musicians working alongside each other. The resulting recording will precede the first performance and be used to rehearse the members in smaller groups before it is premiered. The text and film will be added only after the major sections of the composition is ready. There is already a rough outline of fifteen movements and their basic premise that can initiate discussion.

To learn more about this group, contact John Rapson at ira-rapson@uiowa.edu.

The Opera Studies Working Group offers a variety of lectures and activities that are free and open to all members of the University and beyond. Please explore the group's website, https://operastudies.wordpress.com, to learn about the group's purpose and history, view archived events, and see what other resources are available with regard to opera.

To learn more about this group, contact its director, Robert Ketterer (robert-ketterer@uiowa.edu). 

Now in its seventh year, this working group will focus on reading about the existing research where the voices of community partners are at the center of publicly engaged scholarship. This working groups intends to co-author more collaborative pieces that bring in the voices of community partners, an aspect that is largely missing from the scholarly work on publicly engaged scholarship. 

As publicly engaged scholars, the members of this working group believe that at the center of engaged scholarship are campus-community partnerships reflecting careful partnerships and ethical principles of engagement. The group is aware that power, position, and resources may disrupt well-intended activities of public engagement. As such, the group remains sensitive to the power and position members occupy as representatives of the University. As its members are researchers/scholars, the group's scholarship often focuses on those who are less powerful and represent groups who are different with regard to race/ethnicity, language, literacy, and class, and face dramatic health disparities and experience gaps in education. Creating sensitive campus-community partnerships requires constant monitoring of ethics so that communities/local residents do not become laboratories for University research.

Second, from an academic perspective, the members are mindful that engaged scholarship requires time and energy investments and still may not be valued in the academy. Since Year 1, the group's discussions have focused on how members might move the academy so that colleagues and administrators understand the value in publicly engaged efforts of teaching and scholarship. The group will continue discussions focused on creating and maintaining sensitive partnerships with community members while also exploring new visions of engaged scholarship in rural southeastern Iowa. Finally, this working group intends to continue to explore how members can mentor colleagues and graduate students interested in similar work.

To learn more about this group, contact Carolyn Colvin, carolyn-colvin@uiowa.edu.