Upcoming Events

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants promotional image

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants

Friday, May 8, 2026 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 ten 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

Graduate students: Note that the Graduate College offers Small Grants for the...

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Upcoming Application Deadlines

Upcoming Application Deadlines

Application Deadline: Spring 2026 Obermann Writing Collective promotional image

Application Deadline: Spring 2026 Obermann Writing Collective

Friday, January 23, 2026 5:00pm
111 Church Street

This program offers accountability to artists, scholars, and researchers working on any kind of writing project (articles, essays, fellowship or grant applications, dissertations, book projects, edited volumes, etc.) who want dedicated time, a cozy space, and a community for the practice of writing.

In spring 2026, four writing groups will meet in our Writers' Attic at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies at 111 Church St. Each group will meet once a week for 1.5 hours, beginning the week of...

Nomination Deadline: Obermann Interdisciplinary Achievement Award promotional image

Nomination Deadline: Obermann Interdisciplinary Achievement Award

Monday, February 2, 2026 5:00pm
111 Church Street

The new Obermann Interdisciplinary Achievement Award recognizes individuals or teams whose trajectories have engaged diverse disciplines to produce insights that would be unattainable within a single academic silo. These scholars cultivate collaborative work, fostering dialogue across academic fields and institutional units. Their research or creative work engages with foundational questions that resonate across society. By recognizing interdisciplinary excellence, the Obermann Center for...

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Fall 2026) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Fall 2026)

Saturday, February 14, 2026 (all day)
111 Church Street

The UI Obermann Center for Advanced studies is accepting applications for Fall 2026 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 with...

Spring Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop promotional image

Spring Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop

Tuesday, February 17, 2026 5:00pm
111 Church Street

Co-sponsored by the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and the Office of the Vice President for Research, Book Ends—Obermann Book Completion Workshop supports University of Iowa faculty from disciplines in which publishing a monograph is required for tenure and promotion. The award is designed to assist faculty members in turning promising manuscripts into important, field-changing, published books.

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants promotional image

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants

Friday, May 8, 2026 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 ten 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

Graduate students: Note that the Graduate College offers Small Grants for the...

News

Executive Directors of MLA, AHA to Participate in Humanities Career Diversity Symposium

On September 13 and 14, 2019, Paula Krebs and Jim Grossman—executive directors of the Modern Language Association and American Historical Association, respectively—will join other national leaders of engaged graduate education for a UI-led symposium on public scholarship, experiential learning, and humanities graduate education. University of Iowa PhD students who participated in this summer's...

Relying on the Unreliable: Historian Catherine Stewart Examines 1930s Domestic Workers

Obermann Fellow-in-Residence Catherine Stewart’s current book project, The New Maid, relies in part on a highly unreliable source—student essays. Specifically, Stewart is interested in what is divulged through a cache of papers written by students at a private women’s college in the South in response to the topic, “Negro servants in my household.” Written between 1928 and 1940, the nearly 100...
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...

Recent Events

CANCELED: Humanities for the 21st Century: A conversation

Wednesday, April 15, 2020 4:30pm to 6:30pm
Old Capitol Museum

Update 3/11/2020: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED.

 

 

Latina/o/x Cultural Citizenships & Popular Belonging (Sawyer Seminar Symposium) promotional image

Latina/o/x Cultural Citizenships & Popular Belonging (Sawyer Seminar Symposium)

Friday, March 27, 2020 (all day)
Iowa City Public Library

After having addressed issues surrounding formal citizenship and national belonging in the previous semester, this one-day symposium -- part of our yearlong Mellon Foundation-funded Sawyer Seminar on “Imagining Latinidades: Articulations of National Belonging” -- will bring subject area experts to discuss modalities of popular belonging (television, sports, music, literature, and more) in Latina/o/x contexts in the U.S.

Speakers include the following: Frederick Luis Aldama is Arts and...

Canceled
The Art & Science of Attention — An Obermann Conversation promotional image

The Art & Science of Attention — An Obermann Conversation

Wednesday, March 25, 2020 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Iowa City Public Library

NOTICE: This event has been postponed. We hope to reschedule soon. Please check back.

Please join us for this free, public Obermann Conversation about attention and focus. We are living in an age of distractibility. Understanding how our brains attend and focus, as well as what we can do to cultivate attention, is necessary for our effectiveness and happiness. 

Shaun Vecera's (Psychological and Brain Sciences) overarching work attempts to understand the basic yet complex mechanisms of...

Canceled
What Can Museums Become: "Future Media of Museums" promotional image

What Can Museums Become: "Future Media of Museums"

Saturday, March 7, 2020 2:00pm to 3:30pm
Art Building West

The 2020 Obermann Humanities Symposium, "What Can Museums Become?", will bring together a distinguished group of museum directors, curators, educators and artists who will reflect on the transformative work that museums perform in the twenty-first century.

 

The closing keynote lecture on Saturday will be delivered by Michelle Kuo, who is the Marlene Hess Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art. In "Future Media of Museums," she will explore the evolving impact of...

What Can Museums Become? —2020 Obermann Humanities Symposium promotional image

What Can Museums Become? —2020 Obermann Humanities Symposium

Saturday, March 7 to Monday, March 9, 2020 (all day)

Museums have never been mere containers for objects, nor should they be. How might we draw strength from existing institutions to enable vibrant futures? How can we expand the communities who feel a sense of belonging within and around museums? What must we confront and transform to make this possible? Join the artists, curators, historians, educators, and thinkers who are asking, "What Can Museums Become?"

Keynote speakers include Johanna Burton, Director of the Wexner Center for the Arts at...

What Can Museums Become, Relationality and Performance: A Critical Genealogy promotional image

What Can Museums Become, Relationality and Performance: A Critical Genealogy

Friday, March 6, 2020 7:00pm to 8:00pm
University of Iowa Main Library

The 2020 Obermann Humanities Symposium, "What Can Museums Become?", will bring together a distinguished group of museum directors, curators, educators and artists who will reflect on the transformative work that museums perform in the twenty-first century.

Friday’s Keynote lecture: “Relationality and Performance: A Critical Genealogy” will be delivered by Amelia Jones, a feminist curator who is also the Robert A. Day Professor and Vice Dean of Research at the Roski School of Art and Design at...