Featured Alliances

National

The Obermann Center works closely with a number of national organizations to support research on campus while also advocating for the importance of research out in the world.

National Humanities Alliance

The University of Iowa is a member of the National Humanities Alliance (NHA), the nation’s leading advocacy group for the humanities. Obermann Center Director Teresa Mangum recently served on the NHA's Board of Directors, and each year she joins colleagues from across the state to participate in Humanities Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill, meeting with members of Congress to make the case for federal funding for the humanities.

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The Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes

The Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) is a global forum that strengthens the work of humanities centers and institutes through advocacy, grant-making, and inclusive collaboration. The Obermann Center for Advanced Studies is both a member of CHCI and a participant in the CHCI/ACLS Partnership, which connects CHCI member organizations with recipients of the ACLS Recent Doctoral Recipients fellowship program.

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Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life

The Imagining America consortium (IA) brings together scholars, artists, designers, humanists, and organizers to imagine, study, and enact a more just and liberatory ‘America’ and world. Working across institutional, disciplinary, and community divides, IA strengthens and promotes public scholarship, cultural organizing, and campus change that inspires collective imagination, knowledge-making, and civic action on pressing public issues. The University of Iowa is a member institution via the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies. Many UI graduate students and faculty members have shared their work at Imagining America conferences in the last decade, and a number of UI graduate students have been selected for IA's prestigious Publicly Active Graduate Education Fellowship program. Obermann Director Teresa Mangum has served on IA's National Advisory Board and Executive Committee.

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The Dickens Project

The Dickens Project is an international research consortium of over 40 international universities. In collaboration with the UI English Department, the Obermann Center helps to send a faculty member and two graduate students to The Dickens Universe conference each year.

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Local and State

Our public-facing work at Obermann often connects us to local organizations whose missions complement our own.

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FilmScene

FilmScene is member-supported, mission-driven independent cinema that shows more than 300 feature films every year, in addition to presenting filmmaker dialogues, panel discussions, and community events.

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Iowa City Public Library

The Iowa City Public Library is a center of community life that connects people of all ages with information, engages them with the world of ideas and with each other, and enriches the community by supporting learning, promoting literacy, and encouraging creativity. The Obermann Center frequently partners with the Library to offer virtual and in-person public events, including Obermann Conversations and Humanities Symposium and Mellon Sawyer Seminar events.

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Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature

Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature promotes and encourages the love of literature by providing opportunities for the enjoyment of every genre to inspire and enrich the minds and souls of readers and writers of all ages and from all parts of the local community. At times, this organization and the Obermann Center co-sponsor special events of interest to the local community.

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Prairie Lights Bookstore

Prairie Lights is a historic, independent bookstore in downtown Iowa City and host of the long-running reading series, Live from Prairie Lights, which features local, national, and international writers. The Obermann Center is glad to partner with Prairie Lights whenever the opportunity arises!

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University of Iowa

We're glad to partner regularly with campus units in our effort to support the (often interdisciplinary) work of UI artists, researchers, and scholars and to inspire faculty and graduate students as they experiment with new ideas, methods, partnerships, and forms for sharing knowledge.

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Center for Teaching

The Center for Teaching encourages and advances teaching and learning excellence at Iowa, and promotes a university culture that values and rewards exceptional teaching. 

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International Programs office

International Programs

International Programs provides guidance and support for international students in the UI community, as well as scholarships and assistance for UI students who wish to study, intern, or do research abroad. It also provides funding opportunities and grant-writing assistance for UI faculty engaged in international research.

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Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry (POROI)

POROI is an electronic journal published by the University of Iowa Libraries. Scholarly articles in POROI emphasize the rhetoric of knowledge production in and across academic disciplines; how knowledge flows between technical, public, and personal spheres of discourse; and how communication media affect argumentation, its dissemination, and reception.

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Schaeffer Hall

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Founded in 1900, the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) is home to some of the leading programs in the world in the arts, humanities, and sciences, including the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, speech pathology and audiology, fine arts, social psychology, and space physics. CLAS faculty and students have been awarded over forty Pulitzer Prizes and over twenty Rhodes scholarships, in addition to numerous other awards and recognition for excellence.

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Office of Community Engagement

The Office of Community Engagement works to facilitate the development of mutually beneficial partnerships between faculty, staff, and students at the University of Iowa with community partners across our state, nation, and world.

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View of Public Policy Center

Public Policy Center

The UI Public Policy Center supports a large intramural research program and a university-wide research development program, emphasizing, but not limited to, the social sciences. PPC researchers investigate some of the most important problems facing society at the local and national level. PPC shares the resources and expertise of the University of Iowa with policymakers and the public through engagement activities. Student involvement and training in research is emphasized, as is the development and support of interdisciplinary research across all Colleges.

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Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio

Housed in the University of Iowa Libraries, the Studio collaborates with faculty and students on the design and implementation of digital scholarly research projects. 

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Old Capitol Museum facade in summer, with flowers

Old Capitol Museum

The Old Capitol Museum seeks to educate the university, local, and national communities on the continuing significance of the humanities, as an invigorated and distinguished building that serves as a center of culture and civic discourse for the State of Iowa, through public outreach initiatives, educational programming, exhibitions, and academic scholarship.

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detail from Jackson Pollock's Mural

UI Stanley Museum of Art

The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art welcomes the UI community, all Iowans, and the world to discover and enjoy extraordinary works of art, explore new ideas, and cultivate new insights into history, culture, and the act of creation.

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Graduate College

The Graduate College offers programs and certificates in over 100 areas of study, spanning the arts and humanities, biological sciences, health sciences, engineering, education, physical sciences, social sciences, business, and newly emerging fields.

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Museum of Natural History

Pentacrest Museums: Museum of Natural History

The University of Iowa Museum of Natural History strives to inspire in visitors of all ages understanding and a sense of wonder, discovery, respect, and responsibility for our natural and cultural worlds through exhibits, educational programs, and collections, as well as through linkages with UI research and activities.

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Books on a shelf

University of Iowa Press

Established in 1969, the University of Iowa Press is a well-regarded academic publisher serving scholars, students, and readers throughout the world with works of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. As the only university press in the state, Iowa is also dedicated to preserving the literature, history, culture, wildlife, and natural areas of the Midwest. The Obermann Center and the University of Iowa Press are current collaborators on the Humanities and Public Life Book Series.

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