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

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...

First Iowa City Archive Crawl Celebrates Treasures in Local Collections

Hold History in Your Hands at the First-Ever Iowa City Archives Crawl What gems hide in plain sight in Iowa City’s libraries, museums, and archives? At the area’s first-ever archives crawl, visitors can snoop in between the pages of historic diaries, read other people's mail, hold feathers and fossils, and peer into mysteries revealed by historic artifacts like swords and locks of...
Graduate Institute participants doing a movement exercise

UI students learn the true meaning of public engagement

Thank you to Emily Nelson and Iowa Now for this article about the 2018 Obermann Graduate Institute Some scholars may consider giving a presentation, curating an exhibit, or hosting a medical screening for community groups to be a form of public engagement. Although each of these is an important contribution, the annual Obermann Graduate Institute on Engagement and the Academy encourages...

The Archeology of Ten Minutes Ago: Preserving the Artifacts of Border Crossing

Across campus and community, you’ll be seeing the poster for our upcoming symposium, Against Amnesia: Archives, Evidence, and Social Justice. We wanted a powerful image to anchor our communications for this event—one that captures the urgency and importance of archiving in today’s political climate, especially in the name of human rights. Living, breathing archives, uncomfortable, incriminating...

UI’s Iowa Native Spaces project works with Meskwaki, Ioway to bring historical perspectives to more Iowans

Reprinted from Iowa Now, this article features a project that was incubated via the Obermann Working Group program and has been directed by Jacki Rand (History, CLAS) who has been an Obermann Fellow-in-Residence and Co-Director of the Obermann Graduate Institute, as well as former Graduate Institute Fellows Eric Zimmer and Dave De La Tore and Obermann HASTAC Scholar Mary Wise. Article by Chris...

Recent Events

Faculty Book Proposal Workshop with Mark Simpson-Vos promotional image

Faculty Book Proposal Workshop with Mark Simpson-Vos

Friday, April 18, 2025 9:00am to 12:00pm
111 Church Street

For this workshop, 4–5 UI faculty members will submit book proposal drafts for a collaborative feedback session led by Mark Simpson-Vos, Senior Executive Editor at University of North Carolina Press.

The session is designed to help authors write a compelling book proposal, with a focus on crafting a strong pitch, identifying target audiences, and outlining the project’s structure. The workshop’s goal is for participants to walk away with a strong and cohesive book proposal, increasing their...

"Beyond Crisis: Restoring the Creative Partnership between Authors and Publishers" - Lecture by Mark Simpson-Vos promotional image

"Beyond Crisis: Restoring the Creative Partnership between Authors and Publishers" - Lecture by Mark Simpson-Vos

Thursday, April 17, 2025 3:30pm to 4:30pm
111 Church Street

At this public lecture, Mark Simpson-Vos — Senior Executive Editor at University of North Carolina Press — will discuss the way commentators have since the 1970s routinely trotted out the idea that scholarly publishing is in crisis, and how the stance of publishers in particular has been to shrug off such ideas. In this moment, however, it is impossible to ignore the deep strains within the scholarly publishing ecosystem, amidst increasingly turbulent times for American higher education. Lament...

Graduate Student Session with Mark Simpson-Vos, Obermann Editor-in-Residence promotional image

Graduate Student Session with Mark Simpson-Vos, Obermann Editor-in-Residence

Thursday, April 17, 2025 10:00am to 11:00am
111 Church Street

This interactive talk for PhD and MFA students in the writing disciplines will outline the publishing process for first books. The session will guide graduate students through the steps of the academic publishing process, with a focus on demystifying the journey from dissertation/thesis to manuscript to published book. Key topics will include identifying the right academic publisher, understanding peer review, negotiating contracts, and building a strong proposal. Led by Mark Simpson-Vos, Senior...

Annual Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day 2025 promotional image

Annual Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day 2025

Saturday, April 12, 2025 (all day)
MacLean Hall

In honor of Sonia Kovalevsky, the Department of Mathematics at the University of Iowa organizes Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day yearly with the goal to inspire young women interested in math and show them that math is like solving a puzzle. Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day is an opportunity for young women to engage in a day of networking, mentoring, and fun! The daylong program includes workshops, interactive talks, math related games and panels of professionals with...

Writing for The Conversation: Informational Lunch for Grad Students and Postdocs promotional image

Writing for The Conversation: Informational Lunch for Grad Students and Postdocs

Friday, April 11, 2025 12:00pm to 1:30pm
111 Church Street

Join the Office of the Vice President for Research, the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, and the Graduate College for lunch and an introduction to pitching your research to The Conversation US with Kristy Nabhan-Warren, Associate Vice President for Research. 

The Conversation is an independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of academic experts for the public good. With a monthly readership of 20 million, The Conversation expertly shares a scholar’s expertise far...

Application Deadline: Obermann Working Groups (2025–26) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Working Groups (2025–26)

Wednesday, April 9, 2025 5:00pm

Obermann Center Working Groups provide space, structure, and discretionary funding ($500 per year for 3 years) 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 explore new work and to share their own research, to organize a symposium, and to develop grant proposals. This program allows participants from across the campus and beyond to explore complex issues at a...