Upcoming Events

Eleanor Waltzes: Women’s Poetry and Music for Eleanor Roosevelt During the Great Depression promotional image

Eleanor Waltzes: Women’s Poetry and Music for Eleanor Roosevelt During the Great Depression

Saturday, September 26, 2026 3:00pm
Voxman Music Building

“Eleanor Waltzes” honors First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt through performances of songs and poetry created and sent to her by American women. The event will also feature an exhibit of materials from the Iowa Women’s Archives and a “making do” reception with 1930s recipes. “Eleanor Waltzes” is part of Sounding the Nation at 250, a series of commemorative concerts surrounding the U.S. Semiquincentennial sponsored by the Society for American Music.

Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026, 3 p.m.

Recital Hall, Voxman...

Registration Deadline: Junior Faculty and Graduate Student Session with Walter Biggins, Obermann Editor-in-Residence promotional image

Registration Deadline: Junior Faculty and Graduate Student Session with Walter Biggins, Obermann Editor-in-Residence

Wednesday, September 30, 2026 (all day)
111 Church Street

University of Iowa junior faculty and graduate students at all stages are invited to join Walter Biggins—editor-in-chief at the University of Pennsylvania Press—for a light breakfast and a conversation about turning an article, thesis, or dissertation into a book on Tuesday, Oct. 6, from 9–10:30 a.m. at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies library. Please bring any questions you have about that process or about scholarly publishing in general.

Register by Wednesday, September 30.

Biggins is...

Registration Deadline: Undergraduate Career Session with Walter Biggins, Obermann Editor-in-Residence promotional image

Registration Deadline: Undergraduate Career Session with Walter Biggins, Obermann Editor-in-Residence

Wednesday, September 30, 2026 (all day)
111 Church Street

Interested in a career in publishing? In this session on Tuesday, Oct. 6, at noon at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, Walter Biggins, editor-in-chief at University of Pennsylvania Press, will discuss his career path and editorial work. This is an opportunity for students to hear directly from a distinguished professional about the realities of the field and to gain insight into how to prepare for a career in publishing. Pizza will be provided!

Please register by Wednesday, September 30.

B...

RSVP Deadline: AMA with Walter Biggins, Obermann Editor-in-Residence promotional image

RSVP Deadline: AMA with Walter Biggins, Obermann Editor-in-Residence

Wednesday, September 30, 2026 (all day)
111 Church Street

UI faculty, students, and staff are invited to attend ask-me-anything group discussions with Walter Biggins—editor-in-chief at University of Pennsylvania Press—at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 1 at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies. Questions might address finding an editor, pitching a book, writing a book proposal, how the publishing process works, etc.

There will be two back-to-back discussions; you may attend one or both.

Please RSVP by Wednesday, September 30.

Free and open to all.

Bi...

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Upcoming Application Deadlines

Upcoming Application Deadlines

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Spring 2027) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Spring 2027)

Friday, September 18, 2026 11:59pm
111 Church Street

The UI Obermann Center for Advanced studies is accepting applications for Spring 2027 Obermann International Fellowships. This program offers dedicated space, time, and funding for interdisciplinary scholars to collaborate on innovative research at the University of Iowa. Up to eight international fellowships will be granted every academic year. Applicants must be active researchers at an accredited institution of higher learning outside of the United States or independent researchers/artists...

Application Deadline: Book Ends, Obermann Book Completion Workshop promotional image

Application Deadline: Book Ends, Obermann Book Completion Workshop

Wednesday, September 23, 2026 5:00pm
Virtual

Books Ends supports University of Iowa faculty from disciplines in which publishing a monograph is required for tenure and promotion. The award is designed to assist UI faculty members of all ranks and with significant research responsibilities to turn promising manuscripts into important, field-changing, published books.

Book Ends brings together a panel of senior scholars for a candid, constructive three-hour virtual workshop on a faculty member’s book manuscript. The award provides a $500...

Application Deadline: Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grants (Summer 2027) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grants (Summer 2027)

Wednesday, October 7, 2026 5:00pm
111 Church Street

Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grants (IDRG) foster collaborative scholarship and creative work by offering recipients time and space to exchange new ideas leading to invention, creation, and publication. IDRG groups work at the Obermann Center for two weeks, usually in July and/or August. Applicants propose work on a project with colleagues from across the University, across disciplines within their own department, or with colleagues from other parts of the country or the world. Projects...

Application Deadline: Obermann Symposium Directorship (2027–28) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Symposium Directorship (2027–28)

Wednesday, October 28, 2026 5:00pm
111 Church Street

Is there a burning topic in your discipline or a topic that cuts across disciplines that we should bring to campus? Is there a format for the conversation that can energize an intellectual community around that topic? That might be the perfect topic for an Obermann Symposium!

In addition to a compelling topic, we invite co-directors to propose national and international speakers who can offer richly diverse perspectives on the symposium theme. We also want to highlight the work of UI and local...

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...

News

Joy Melody Woods

Making Space: Grad Institute alum blogs, podcasts for Black graduate students with mental health issues

Imagine discovering halfway through your master’s degree that you read at a fourth-grade level. That’s exactly what happened to Joy Melody Woods during her first year in the College of Public Health’s MPH Program. After mentioning to her supervisor that she was having difficulties in some of her classes and struggling to focus on the assigned readings, her supervisor suggested that she be...
Open book with butterflies fluttering above it

Book Ends: New program helps faculty finish book projects

Bringing a book to the finish line of publication is one of the most challenging tasks faced by scholars in disciplines where monographs are the main vehicle for sharing discoveries. At the Obermann Center, we hope to smooth the path by helping create an inspiring, supportive audience of experts for authors in they head into the final stretch of completing a book project....
Digital Bridges logo

Digital Bridges Symposium, August 8-10

With generous support from Grinnell College, the University of Iowa, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Digital Bridges for Humanistic Inquiry: A Grinnell College/University of Iowa Partnership's co-directors Erik Simpson (Grinnell) and Teresa Mangum (UI) have worked with students, staff, and faculty in a fascinating, rewarding, and instructive multi-year experience in collaboration....
Carolyn Hartley

Beyond Justice: Understanding the Adjudication Process of Sexual Misconduct on College Campuses

Sexual misconduct is a serious issue on college campuses across the U.S. In fact, it is a civil rights issue, as it can undermine students’ ability and opportunity to pursue their education. What many people don’t understand is that sexual misconduct denotes a continuum of behavior—from persistent unwelcome sexual comments and advances to stalking, domestic violence, and sexual assault. Since...

Archiving the Archives

The 2018 Obermann Humanities Symposium and Provost's Global Forum, "Against Amnesia: Archives, Evidence, and Social Justice," brought a dozen scholars, artists, and archivists to Iowa City to share their wide-ranging work. While our symposia are usually organized by two or three faculty members who propose topics, this time Obermann Director Teresa Mangum (Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and...

Mangum Elected VP of National Humanities Alliance

The Obermann Center is a member of several organizations that advocate for the value of research, including the National Humanities Alliance. The NHA draws members from universities; professional organizations like the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Historical Association and the Modern Language Association; and cultural institutions. All were critical in securing renewed...

Healing Arts: Scholar Traces Journey of a 15th-Century Medical Book

Twice now, art historian Sarah Kyle has visited the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice to study the Roccabonella Herbal, a fifteenth-century illustrated book of plant medicines. Neither the text of the 900-page volume nor its more than 450 images are available digitally, and Kyle is interested in the interplay of the two. “Although the book is extremely fragile,” says the associate professor...

Full audio of Trudy Peterson's keynote lecture on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

On March 1, 2018, Trudy H. Peterson delivered the Ida Beam Distinguished Visiting Professorship Keynote Lecture, “Best When Used By: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” as part of the 2018 Provost's Global Forum/Obermann Humanities Symposium, "Against Amnesia: Archives, Evidence, and Social Justice." Listen to the full audio below:

Archives as a Space for Social Justice Is Focus of Provost's Global Forum/Obermann Humanities Symposium

“It is essential to seize the power of archives and use it to hold institutional and government leaders accountable. All aspects of society should be documented, not simply those where power has traditionally resided.” —Randall Jimerson, “Archives for All: Professional Responsibility and Social Justice” Animating the Archives Archives conjure up visions of crumbling files tied with...

Two UI Students Selected as HWW Fellows

Two University of Iowa graduate students have been named as Humanities Without Walls consortium 2018 pre-doctoral workshop fellows. Lydia Maunz-Breese (English, CLAS) and Makayla Steiner (English, CLAS) will be among 30 students from the consortium who will participate in a three-week career diversity workshop in Chicago. Under the leadership of the Chicago Humanities Festival...

Recent Events

Humanities and Public Life in the Age of COVID promotional image

Humanities and Public Life in the Age of COVID

Thursday, March 10, 2022 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Virtual

How have engaged artists and scholars in the University of Iowa Press Humanities & Public Life Book Series responded pragmatically, pedagogically, and philosophically to the last two years?
 
The last few years have raised tough questions for publicly engaged artists and humanists. COVID shut down their projects, politics have divided communities, and protests against systemic racism have demanded that engaged scholars re-examine how they work with public partners and with students. As one way...

EXHIBITION SPOTLIGHT: Anne Frank (PT II) promotional image

EXHIBITION SPOTLIGHT: Anne Frank (PT II)

Wednesday, March 9, 2022 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Virtual

The University of Iowa Pentacrest Museums explores current exhibition Let Me Be Myself: The Life Story of Anne Frank through the Exhibition Spotlight program series in a special two-part virtual panel event. Pentacrest Museums Director of Education & Engagement, Carolina Kaufman will moderate discussion with panelists on a variety of related topics to share the story and legacy of Anne Frank and her impact on society. These sessions will illuminate how Frank's story has inspired new approaches...

The Annex, Amsterdam, and Understanding the Space of Anne Frank's Diary promotional image

The Annex, Amsterdam, and Understanding the Space of Anne Frank's Diary

Tuesday, March 8, 2022 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Iowa City Public Library

As we await the arrival of the Anne Frank Tree, which will be planted on the University of Iowa Pentacrest on April 29, 2022, we encourage people of all ages to read the book that is at the heart of this event. Better yet—read it in community!

To provide context to your reading, we’re offering three in-person discussions at the Iowa City Public Library (123 S. Linn St., Iowa City). All of the discussions are free and open to the general public. 

In this first session, Heike Kumpf, AIA, will...

Next-Generation Dissertations—New Projects for an Engaged Academy promotional image

Next-Generation Dissertations—New Projects for an Engaged Academy

Monday, March 7, 2022 1:00pm to 2:30pm
Virtual

Dissertation reform is an essential thread in the tapestry of reimagining doctoral education. More and more scholars are finding creative ways to share their scholarly research and intellectual insights in dynamic, engaging forms such as graphic novels, mobile games, documentary films, and more, and are having an impact both within and beyond the academy. Join several humanities and social science scholars and the advisors who have supported them to learn more about these projects and why this...

Application Deadline: Mellon Sawyer Seminar Post-Doctoral Scholar promotional image

Application Deadline: Mellon Sawyer Seminar Post-Doctoral Scholar

Friday, March 4, 2022 11:59pm

The Obermann Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Iowa welcomes applications for a full-time, twelve-month Post-Doctoral Scholar to begin on August 15, 2022. The Post-Doctoral Fellowship is for the academic year and includes participation in the 2022-2023 Mellon Sawyer Seminar on “Racial Reckoning and Social Justice through Comics” to be led by Corey Creekmur (Cinematic Arts, English, Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies), Ana Merino (Spanish and Portuguese), and Rachel Williams...

Carl V. Gisolfi Seminar Series: "The Misunderstanding of Exercise for Those with Autism" by David Geslak promotional image

Carl V. Gisolfi Seminar Series: "The Misunderstanding of Exercise for Those with Autism" by David Geslak

Friday, March 4, 2022 2:00pm to 3:30pm
Iowa Bioscience Innovation Facility

Exercise is one of the most underutilized and cost-­effective treatments for individuals with autism. In addition to the health-­related benefits, research shows that exercise can increase attention span, reduce stress, enhance language development and enhance well-being for individuals with autism. David S. Geslak, President and Founder of Exercise Connection, has trained professionals around the world. In this lecture, titled, "The Misunderstanding of Exercise for Those with Autism," he will...