Obermann Center for Advanced Studies

Publishing a monograph is essential to the careers of scholars in many disciplines, but the academic publishing process is often opaque and mystifying. This spring, the Obermann Center begins a new program to set UI faculty and graduate students up for success in the publishing market by connecting them with an accomplished editor from a scholarly press.

The Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI)—a global forum that strengthens the work of humanities centers through advocacy, grant-making, and inclusive collaboration—has selected a joint humanities project of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and the Universidad de la República, Uruguay, to participate in its Global Justice and Humanities Practices initiative, with an accompanying award of $10,000. “Mass Migrations, Personal Voices: Latin American Women Migrants Write Their Stories” will explore and disseminate new insights into the impact of guided creative writing on the lives of Latin American migrant women. Luis Martín-Estudillo, Director of the Obermann Center, authored the proposal and will serve as the project’s PI. Luis Muñoz, UI Associate Professor of Spanish and director of the MFA in Spanish Creative Writing, and a graduate student in Spanish Creative Writing, will work alongside Martín-Estudillo and two faculty from the Centro de Estudios Interdisciplinarios Migratorios (Center for Interdisciplinary Migration Studies) at the Universidad de la República in Montevideo, Uruguay’s flagship institution, to plan and conduct creative writing workshops for women who recently migrated to Uruguay, having fled economic and humanitarian crises in their native Venezuela.

The Obermann Center for Advanced Studies is seeking an advanced (ABD) humanities or social sciences PhD student to work with the Obermann staff to support programs and events and tell the stories of the exciting research projects and initiatives supported by the Center. This is a professional position that is geared toward a student who is interested in careers beyond the professoriate (e.g., at academic research centers, national professional organizations, nonprofits, etc.). The position requires both creativity and detail-oriented work, including writing, editing, data entry, and interacting with members of the UI and surrounding community. The Program Coordinator will become a valued member of our close-knit team and will ultimately gain from the position a valuable store of administrative, event planning, publicity, marketing, interviewing, problem-solving, and project management skills that will be applicable to any professional work environment. Because we are a small team with each person performing multiple roles, the worker in this position must also be prepared to help with other tasks as they arise.