Upcoming Events & Deadlines

Planning and Writing Successful Grant Proposals in the Creative Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities Seminar promotional image

Planning and Writing Successful Grant Proposals in the Creative Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities Seminar

Thursday, January 14, 2027 8:30am to 12:30pm
Iowa Memorial Union (IMU)

The Research Development Office is hosting an in-person grant writing seminar, Planning and Writing Successful Grant Proposals in the Creative Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities, that will be held on Wednesday, Jan. 13 from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Thursday, Jan. 14 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the IMU. The seminar is presented by AtKisson Training Group.

This seminar will cover fundamental concepts of proposal planning and writing for the Arts and Humanities faculty backed by concrete...

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants promotional image

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants

Thursday, April 1, 2027 5:00pm
111 Church Street

This new Obermann Center program offers modest yet swift support for those portions of research and creative endeavors by UI scholars that are important toward advancing a project but do not have enough funding from other sources. We will grant 10 awards of $500 or less per academic year. Note that funds need to be spent by June 30 of each year.

Eligibility: Open to all University of Iowa faculty and staff researchers who have not received a SIP award in the past academic year.

Application...

Application Deadline: Obermann Working Groups (2027–30) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Working Groups (2027–30)

Wednesday, April 7, 2027 5:00pm
111 Church Street

Obermann Center Working Groups provide space, structure, and discretionary funding for groups led by faculty that may include advanced graduate students, staff members, and community members with a shared intellectual interest.

Groups have used this opportunity to share their work in progress or draw up a set of readings they want to undertake and discuss. Others have organized conferences, applied for grants together, written articles together, designed new courses, taken field trips, organized...

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News

Ashley Cheyemi McNeil

Ashley Cheyemi McNeil Appointed 2019-21 HPG Postdoctoral Scholar

Interdisciplinary scholar Dr. Ashley Cheyemi Rae McNeil has been appointed the 2019–2021 Postdoctoral Scholar for the Andrew W. Mellon–Funded Humanities for the Public Good (HPG) initiative. McNeil earned her bi-national PhD in English from Georgia State University and in American Studies from the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany. As...

Misfitting: Symposium Connects Disabilities Studies Scholars, Shines Light on Need for Scholarly Leadership at UI

Tricia Zebrowski and Douglas Baynton pulled off a wonderful finale this spring. The two retiring professors—Zebrowski is in her first year as an Emeritus in Communication Sciences & Disorders, while Baynton retired in May 2019 from History—co-directed “Misfitting: Disability Broadly Considered,” the 2019 Obermann Humanities Symposium. During three days in April, the pair helped to host eminent...

Ortiz-Guzmán Appointed 2019-20 Sawyer Seminar Postdoctoral Fellow

Directors of the 2019–20 Andrew W. Mellon Sawyer Seminar, “Imagining Latinidades: Articulations of National Belonging,” have selected interdisciplinary scholar Dr. Lisa Ortiz-Guzmán as the Seminar’s Postdoctoral Fellow. Ortiz-Guzmán earned her PhD in Educational Policy Studies with graduate minors in Latina/o Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana...

Not Distracted: Aiden Bettine Balances Traditional Scholarship and Public Engagement Projects

Aiden Bettine, the first Humanities for the Public Good (HPG) Graduate Fellow, is already embodying the goals of this grant. A historian with a strong commitment to public scholarship, Aiden is pushing the boundaries of his discipline in experimental and collaborative directions. With funding and support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Office of the Vice President for Research, and the...

Four CLAS Graduate Students Chosen for National Humanities Center Education Program

Four University of Iowa PHD candidates have been selected to attend the 2019 Graduate Student Summer Residency Program at the National Humanities Center in the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. From July 15 to 26, Aiden M. Bettine (History), Enrico Bruno (English), Hadley Galbraith (French & Italian), and Mary Wise (History) will join approximately 100 fellow humanities graduate students...

Andrew Tubbs: Scholar, musician, disability advocate, comedian

Andrew Tubbs would like to see more researchers recognize the influence that disability has on their work—no matter the field of study. “It’s beneficial for researchers to understand that disability inherently intersects with their work,” Tubbs says. “Being able to come at issues, research questions, and problems from a disability perspective helps nuance arguments.” The University of Iowa...
Street pickers with can carriers in Matanzas, Cuba

Yellow Fever's History of Humans, Microbes, and Ideas

Jennifer New
Yellow fever was once a terrifying killer that violently took the lives of half of the people who contracted it. It killed workers building canals, soldiers engaged in sieges, and investors on fact-finding missions. A viral disease spread between humans and primates, it is caused by a species of mosquito that prefers clean, fresh water. Before this was proven decisively in 1901, yellow fever was a...

NHA Advocacy Day

Obermann Director Teresa Mangum joined hundreds of humanities faculty members, center directors, and leaders of professional organizations like the Modern Language Association and the American Historical Association in Washington, DC. As part of the annual NHA Advocacy Day, they shared the educational, social, and economic benefits of the arts and humanities. The NHA especially encourages...
Esco in his 20s wearing a suit and bowtie

An Aerial View—Remembering Esco Obermann

Jenna Hammerich
Esco Obermann embodied interdisciplinarity. That's him in the photo to the right, upside down on his parents' windmill in Yarmouth, Iowa. (Look closely—the soles of his shoes are aligned with the motor.) Esco, one of nine siblings, grew up doing acrobatics on his family's farm in southeastern Iowa—backbends on bulls, rope stunts in haylofts, L-sits on windmills—as if driven to seek new...
Nina G

Nina G: Stuttering comic walks the line between satire and issue advocacy

Jennifer New
Bay Area comedian Nina G works tough territory. She plays gigs at clubs with names like “Nightlife on Mars” and “The Laugh Boat.” She stutters. And she’s really funny about it. While most stand-up comics engage their audiences through relatable stories, Nina G’s work pulls that kind observational humor into the broader intersection of comedy, satire and issue advocacy. That’s tough territory...
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Recent Events

Misfitting Humanities Symposium: Reception promotional image

Misfitting Humanities Symposium: Reception

Thursday, April 4, 2019 5:30pm to 7:00pm
MERGE

On April 4-6, the 2019 Obermann Humanities Symposium, Misfitting: Disability Broadly Considered, will bring leading disability scholars from diverse disciplines to discuss the relevance and importance of disability to their respective fields. The symposium will consider the pervasive (though often unnoticed) influence of disability on and in the performing, visual, and literary arts, in philosophy and religion, in political and economic life, and in everyday language, as we explore when and how...

Misfitting Humanities Symposium Lecture: "Family Misfits in the Frankenstein Ballet" promotional image

Misfitting Humanities Symposium Lecture: "Family Misfits in the Frankenstein Ballet"

Thursday, April 4, 2019 4:15pm to 5:30pm
Iowa City Public Library

On April 4-6, the 2019 Obermann Humanities Symposium, Misfitting: Disability Broadly Considered, will bring leading disability scholars from diverse disciplines to discuss the relevance and importance of disability to their respective fields. The symposium will consider the pervasive (though often unnoticed) influence of disability on and in the performing, visual, and literary arts, in philosophy and religion, in political and economic life, and in everyday language, as we explore when and how...

Misfitting Humanities Symposium: Welcome by Tricia Zebrowski & Douglas Baynton promotional image

Misfitting Humanities Symposium: Welcome by Tricia Zebrowski & Douglas Baynton

Thursday, April 4, 2019 4:00pm to 4:15pm
Iowa City Public Library

On April 4-6, the 2019 Obermann Humanities Symposium, Misfitting: Disability Broadly Considered, will bring leading disability scholars from diverse disciplines to discuss the relevance and importance of disability to their respective fields. The symposium will consider the pervasive (though often unnoticed) influence of disability on and in the performing, visual, and literary arts, in philosophy and religion, in political and economic life, and in everyday language, as we explore when and how...

Misfitting: Disability Broadly Considered - 2019 Obermann Humanities Symposium promotional image

Misfitting: Disability Broadly Considered - 2019 Obermann Humanities Symposium

Thursday, April 4 to Saturday, April 6, 2019 (all day)

Disability is a universal human experience. Like gender, race, class, and sexuality, disability affects everyone in multiple ways, shaping and informing our notions of normality, family, community, fitness, and worth. Disability Studies, one of the fastest growing interdisciplinary fields in the humanities, social sciences and health sciences, examines abilities in the context of societies and cultures as they change over time. The symposium will consider the pervasive (though often unnoticed)...

Reading and Re-Translation - an international colloquium promotional image

Reading and Re-Translation - an international colloquium

Saturday, March 30, 2019 (all day)
University Capitol Centre

“Reading and Re-translation" is an international and interdisciplinary colloquium dedicated to the theorization and practice of reading. With funding from an International Programs Major Projects Award, organizers and speakers from around the globe will focus on the current state of research on reading and re-translation and will generate scholarly and creative exchanges between colleagues in diverse fields in the arts, sciences, literatures, and humanities.

The conference opens with a special...

Finding Yourself in Academia: A Diné Historian’s Experience promotional image

Finding Yourself in Academia: A Diné Historian’s Experience

Friday, March 29, 2019 1:30pm to 3:00pm
University Capitol Centre

The Graduate History Society welcomes...

Dr. Farina King
Assistant Professor of History
Cherokee and Indigenous Studies Dept
Northeastern State University
Tahlequah, Oklahoma

Dr. Farina King is an assistant professor of history and affiliate of the Cherokee and Indigenous Studies Department at Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and received her Ph.D. from Arizona, her M.A. in African History from the University of Wisconsin and a B.A. from Brigham Young University with a...