Upcoming Events

Book Ends Information Session (virtual) promotional image

Book Ends Information Session (virtual)

Tuesday, February 3, 2026 8:30am to 9:00am
Virtual

Book 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 faculty members in turning promising manuscripts into important, field-changing, published books. Read more about the program.

Interested applicants are invited to learn more about the program and application process at a virtual information session on Tuesday, February 3, at 8:30 a.m. Obermann Center Director Luis Martín-Estudillo...

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

Wednesday, February 25, 2026 8:30am to 4:30pm
Iowa Memorial Union (IMU)

This seminar will cover fundamental concepts of proposal planning and writing for the Arts and Humanities faculty backed by concrete tips and operational strategies that support planning and longer-term sustainability.

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

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...

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium promotional image

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium

Thursday, March 26 to Friday, March 27, 2026 (all day)
Iowa City Public Library

Directed by Brian R. Farrell, Daria Fisher Page, and Ryan T. Sakoda (UI College of Law), Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research will bring together scholars, community leaders from across the U.S., and professionals who work with rural populations and in rural spaces. During the symposium, attendees will be invited to collaborate in theorizing rurality, share how it impacts their work, examine how rurality is represented and celebrated, and begin to discuss challenges...

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium promotional image

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium

Friday, March 27, 2026 (all day)
Iowa City Public Library

Directed by Brian R. Farrell, Daria Fisher Page, and Ryan T. Sakoda (UI College of Law), Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research will bring together scholars, community leaders from across the U.S., and professionals who work with rural populations and in rural spaces. During the symposium, attendees will be invited to collaborate in theorizing rurality, share how it impacts their work, examine how rurality is represented and celebrated, and begin to discuss challenges...

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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

Iphigenia Point Blank image of a woman's face

Iphigenia Point Blank—On stage and in the community

Two summers ago as part of the Obermann Interdisciplinary Grant program, a group of artists commandeered the Obermann attic and covered tables and walls with prints of Greek vases and statues, photos of George W. Bush and fashion models on the catwalk, a golden blanket made of foil, and film stills of abandoned life jackets. The rich array of objects and images proved to be the birthing site for a...

UI Awarded two grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation totaling $1.6 Million

One grant will bring exciting speakers to campus for a yearlong seminar on Latina/o/x identities and cultures; the other will create practice-based, cross-disciplinary opportunities for humanities graduate students interested in diverse careers. The University of Iowa (UI) Obermann Center for Advanced Studies in the Office of the Vice President for Research will host two grants totaling...
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Capturing the Lived Experiences of Latinx High Schoolers

As recipients of a Summer 2018 Interdisciplinary Research Grant, Gerta Bardhoshi (Counselor Education), Leslie Ann Locke (Educational Policy & Leadership), and Jeremy Swanston (Art & Art History) are engaged in a multi-phase project that seeks to give voice to rural Latinx high school students' lived educational experiences, engage in critical dialogue, and promote policy development in the...
Vero Smith

Vero Smith: Making the Museum More Accessible

Vero Smith is a curator and scholar of architecture who has a passion for making high-level research accessible to the public. As the Associate Curator of the Legacies for Iowa project at the UI Stanley Museum of Art, Smith brings her training in architectural design gained via an MA at the University of Iowa, an MA of Design Studies from Harvard University, and her experience at the Obermann...
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....

Recent Events

Public Forum for Obermann Center for Advanced Studies Director Candidate: Luis Martín-Estudillo

Wednesday, February 28, 2024 2:30pm
Iowa Memorial Union (IMU)

Luis Martín-Estudillo, professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, will deliver a presentation and participate in a Q&A as a candidate for the Director of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies (OCAS). 

Martín-Estudillo specializes in modern and contemporary Spanish cultural and intellectual history and criticism. He has also published broadly on early modern topics and visual culture. His scholarship has appeared in journals such as Goya, Hispanic Review, Journal of Spanish...

Application Deadline: Design Workshop for Environmental Studies Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration promotional image

Application Deadline: Design Workshop for Environmental Studies Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration

Tuesday, February 27, 2024 5:00pm

The Obermann Center for Advanced Studies welcomes campus artists, humanities scholars, and researchers in the sciences and social sciences to imagine the many ways that our campus and connected spaces might serve as a “living laboratory” for environmental research.

The Design Workshop for Environmental Studies Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration is part of our Spring 2024 initiative, Envisioning Interdisciplinary Environmental Research. Part of what makes this initiative special is the...

Public Forum for Obermann Center for Advanced Studies Director Candidate: Naomi Greyser

Friday, February 23, 2024 2:30pm
Iowa Memorial Union (IMU)

Naomi Greyser, associate professor of American Studies, English and Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies, will deliver a presentation and participate in a Q&A as a candidate for the Director of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies (OCAS). 

Greyser serves as executive director of POROI, Iowa’s Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry. In her research, teaching and service, Greyser engages the process of knowledge creation, with an eye towards making space for messiness and unpredictability. Her first...

Book Matters: Margot Livesey in conversation with Lan Samantha Chang at Prairie Lights promotional image

Book Matters: Margot Livesey in conversation with Lan Samantha Chang at Prairie Lights

Monday, February 19, 2024 7:00pm to 8:30pm
Prairie Lights Books

Join us for a reading and discussion, co-sponsored by Prairie Lights, to celebrate Margot Livesey’s new novel, The Road from Belhaven. Livesey is professor of fiction in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the author of 10 other books. After the reading, Lan Samantha Chang, Writers’ Workshop program director and Elizabeth M. Stanley Professor in the Arts, will join Livesey for a conversation and Q&A with the audience. Appetizers and wine will be available.

              Monday, Feb. 19, 2024
      ...

Imagining Community in 2030: An Obermann Conversation promotional image

Imagining Community in 2030: An Obermann Conversation

Monday, February 19, 2024 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Iowa City Public Library

What will our community be like in 2030? How are local nonprofits shaping the Iowa City area, and what are their visions for the future? How can we break down the silos of “city” and “neighborhood” to create a better and more unified place for everyone? In this Obermann Conversation, UI faculty and local nonprofit leaders will discuss how we can harness the collective impact model to create a more equitable community. The collective impact model is a community-building strategy involving a...

Application Deadline: What She Said — A Workshop on Empowering Women’s Voices promotional image

Application Deadline: What She Said — A Workshop on Empowering Women’s Voices

Friday, February 16, 2024 5:00pm

Our voices are an important indicator of who we are. Female-presenting speakers often learn self-undermining speaking habits from the people and society around them. How does the voice contribute to our sense of presence and how others perceive us? Tone, inflection, pace, and volume are some of the vocal elements that provide clues for the listener as to what we think and feel.

In this workshop, UI Theatre Arts professor Mary Mayo will invite you to develop a greater awareness of your voice and...