Upcoming Events & Deadlines

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...

Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop promotional image

Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop

Thursday, May 31, 2029 (all day)
111 Church Street

Books 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 turn promising manuscripts into important, field-changing, published books.

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

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News

Imagining America: A Call to Action

A group of nine University of Iowa faculty members, graduate students, and staff attended the Imagining America conference in Syracuse, New York from October 4-6, 2013, "A Call to Action."Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life is a consortium of universities and organizations dedicated...
David L. Gould (Headshot)_1.jpg

Dave Gould Is First Obermann Public Scholar

Though we tend to associate scholarship with the work of campus faculty members, knowledge creation also has strong roots in our communities. The Obermann Center is piloting a Public Scholar program designed to enhance research on campus through partnerships that engage University of Iowa researchers with innovators outside the University. As Obermann...
Herman Gray

Herman Gray Visit Stems from Obermann Cmiel Semester

Herman S. Gray, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, will give a public lecture on October 18, 2013, “On Race, Representation, and Resonance,” in Becker Auditorium, Room 101, at 4:00 pm. His lecture engages with the way scholars of television and race often take representation as the site of subject/ion and visibility as the object of cultural politics. Gray asks if...
Nouveau recueil d’ostéologie et de myologie : dessiné d’après nature / par Jacques Gamelin

Health Humanities Planning Sessions

We will host two informal planning sessions for University of Iowa faculty and staff who are interested in next April's Health Humanities Working Symposium. (We are having two meetings in order to accommodate schedules.) If you would like to learn more, to participate in the event, or to meet colleagues working across these domains—from medical anthropologists and historians to poets writing about...

Translating Ixtlilxochitl’s Thirteenth Relation

Jennifer New
At the death of an Aztec king, two brothers contest their father’s throne. A civil war ensues and ends with the kingdom divided in two. A number of years later, a Spanish conquistador named Cortés arrives in the area and one brother sends him an offer: I’ll help you if you help me. With the Spaniard’s assistance, the one brother is deposed, while the other not only takes the throne but fights...

Designing the Future

As changes in technology, population, climate, the economy, the organization of knowledge, and other systems gather speed, the need to predict and even to design the future accelerates as does the need to re-envision STEM as STEAM (sciences, technology, engineering, arts-humanities, and medicine). Through 2013-2014, a series of "futurists"—from the arts...
Just Strike by Josh MacPhee

Exuberant Politics: Fall 2013

Exuberant Politics is a yearlong programming initiative examining recent intersections of art and activism around the world. Organized by Exubernaut Collective, a group of faculty, graduate students, and community members, the series enjoys sponsorship from across community and campus, including the Obermann Center.Where have we experienced exuberance in protest and affinity? Grassroots political...

Obermann Afternoons Kicks Off with Talk on Intergenre Crossing

Building on the Obermann Center’s tradition of nurturing interdisciplinary scholarship, the Intergenre Explorations Working Group has brought together faculty engaged in intergenre work. Rather than (or in addition to) crossing disciplines, intergenre work crosses from one mode of research or presentation to another. Synthesizing scholarly and creative modalities, these crossings entail palpable...

Obermann Director Named to National Humanities Alliance Board of Directors

The Obermann Center is pleased to announce that Director Teresa Mangum has been invited to serve on the Board of Directors of the National Humanities Alliance. For over 30 years, the NHA has been the nation’s leading public policy and advocacy organization for the academic and public humanities. This non-partisan advocacy coalition works to advance humanities education and research, preserve...

Teaching the Latino Midwest

The culture and history of Latinos in the Midwest is an increasingly significant topic for college courses in Latino/a Studies. Numbers alone indicate that this regional emphasis is critical. Between 2000 and 2010, the Latino population increased by 44% across the country and by more than 73% in many Midwestern states. Yet, there is no teachable anthology for undergraduate classes.Claire Fox...
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Recent Events

Iowa Writing Centers Consortium Conference promotional image

Iowa Writing Centers Consortium Conference

Friday, April 8, 2022 8:30am to 3:30pm
English-Philosophy Building

The Iowa Writing Centers Consortium Conference brings together college and university writing center staffs and students from throughout Iowa and neighboring states. The 2022 Conference will take place on Friday, April 8th, 2022 on the first floor of the English Philosophy Building from 8:30 am - 3:30 pm.

Conference theme: Lessons from Covid: Losses, gains, discoveries and insights. See here for registration informaton and the schedule.

Registration is $15 for students and $30 for professional...

Invisible Neighbors: Latinx Immigrants in Eastern Iowa — An Obermann Conversation promotional image

Invisible Neighbors: Latinx Immigrants in Eastern Iowa — An Obermann Conversation

Tuesday, April 5, 2022 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Virtual

Every week, new arrivals come to our area from Mexico and Central America. Many come with few possessions and only the thinnest personal network. These largely invisible newcomers to our community have immediate needs, some of which are being addressed by organizations like Open Heartland and UI-sponsored legal and medical clinics. We’ll hear more about our Latinx immigrant neighbors, their needs, and the work currently happening to assist their arrival.

Speakers:

Deb Dunkhase is the founder...

Tasks in Action! — A Workshop by Dr. Julio Torres, UC-Irvine promotional image

Tasks in Action! — A Workshop by Dr. Julio Torres, UC-Irvine

Saturday, April 2, 2022 10:00am to 12:00pm
Virtual

As part of the Teaching and Learning Heritage Languages Series, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Obermann Center present "Tasks in Action!", an interactive workshop with Dr. Julio Torres (UC-Irvine). The workshop will cover pedagogical aspects of the heritage language classroom, with a specific focus on how "tasks" can be used in courses at all levels, including language, culture, literature, linguistics, and courses for specific purposes. Designed for language faculty at the K...

Heritage Language Education: A Talk by Dr. Julio Torres (UC-Irvine) promotional image

Heritage Language Education: A Talk by Dr. Julio Torres (UC-Irvine)

Friday, April 1, 2022 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Virtual

As part of the Teaching and Learning Heritage Languages Series, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Obermann Center present "Heritage Language Education," a talk by Dr. Julio Torres of UC-Irvine. 

ECO SOMA by Petra Kuppers Reading and Book Release Party promotional image

ECO SOMA by Petra Kuppers Reading and Book Release Party

Thursday, March 31, 2022 6:00pm to 8:45pm
The Tuesday Agency

Please join us in welcoming Petra Kuppers to Iowa City for a reading and discussion about her most recent book Eco Soma: Pain and Joy in Speculative Performance Encounters (University of Minnesota Press, 2022) 

Dear Kitty: The Act of Keeping a Diary promotional image

Dear Kitty: The Act of Keeping a Diary

Wednesday, March 30, 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 second session, Dr. Kirsten Kumpf Baele...