News & Events

Upcoming Events

AI Is Not Your Friend: Cautions and Vents about Its Uses and Abuses in the Creation of Scholarly Publications — public lecture by Walter Biggins, Obermann Editor-in-Residence

Tuesday, October 6, 2026 3:00pm to 4:00pm

111 Church Street

On Tuesday, Oct. 6, from 3–4 p.m. at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, Walter Biggins, editor-in-chief at University of Pennsylvania Press—will offer his perspective as both a longtime acquiring editor and as a writer on how the advent of AI affects the present and possible futures of scholarly publishing. In particular, he will discuss how the emerging technology creates concerns and unresolved tensions—ethical, legal, and otherwise—in publishing around intellectual property, peer...

Holding Space: Stories of Interdisciplinary Collaboration — Counterpoint event featuring Stephanie Miracle

Tuesday, October 13, 2026 5:00pm to 5:15pm

Voxman Music Building

Join us to celebrate the interdisciplinary work of University of Iowa choreographer and assistant professor of dance Stephanie Miracle, recipient of the 2026 Obermann Interdisciplinary Achievement Award.

Miracle will bring together dance, engineering, and the humanities in a new choreographed work featuring dancers performing alongside robots built by the University of Iowa College of Engineering, with narration by Eric Gidal.

A conversation among Miracle, Gidal, and engineering collaborator Deema...

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

Wednesday, January 13, 2027 1:00pm to 5:00pm

Iowa Memorial Union (IMU)

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 Humanities, that will be held on Wednesday, Jan. 13 from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Thursday, Jan. 14 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the IMU. The seminar is presented by AtKisson Training Group.

This seminar will cover fundamental concepts of proposal planning and writing for the Arts and Humanities faculty backed by concrete...

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

Thursday, January 14, 2027 8:30am to 12:30pm

Iowa Memorial Union (IMU)

This seminar will cover fundamental concepts of proposal planning and writing for the Arts and Humanities faculty backed by concrete...

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Upcoming Application Deadlines

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)

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)

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

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)

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

Rising Waters, Rapid Changes

Jennifer New

The first-ever University of Iowa graduate seminar in public history was offered this spring semester. The class’ end result, an exhibition and oral history about the flood of 2008, “Rising Waters, Rapid Changes," will be on display starting May 4 in the window of Hands Jewelers. The project is co-sponsored by the Obermann Center. Last year, graduate students in history petitioned the department for more offerings in the growing field of public history. Professor Jackie Rand (History, CLAS), who has worked at the Smithsonian Institution and served as a consultant to the Newberry Library in conjunction with her scholarship on the history of Native North America, state Indian policy, and law, decided to teach the class not only because of the students’ interests but her own growing commitment to public history.

Loyce Arthur Brings Carnaval to Iowa City

On June 9, Loyce Arthur (Theatre Arts, CLAS) will realize her dream of bringing Carnaval to Iowa City. The Iowa City Carnaval Parade will occur Sunday, June 9, in conjunction with the annual Iowa City Arts Festival. Carnaval is a strong, vibrant tradition in several island nations and Latin American countries as well as urban centers around the world, with community members working for a year in...

Redefining a Period

Cinema & Comparative Literature Professor Steve Ungar has spent the past year immersed in the history of documentary films in France between 1928-1962. What has especially captured his attention is how setting a specific film in various time frames affects our understanding of it. “What is a period? What is duration?” he asks with deceptive simplicity. As the recipient of the prestigious...

Obermann Afternoons Features Interdisciplinary Research on Aging

From Cells to Sensors: Interdisciplinary Research in Aging“I was so much older then / I'm younger than that now.” (Bob Dylan, 1964)People have long sought a Fountain of Youth. The Aging Mind and Brain Initiative (AMBI) uses science to uncover mechanisms of aging and develop ways to promote healthy brain aging across the lifespan. On April 30 from 4:00 to 5:30 pm at the Obermann Center, Dr. Matt...

Reflections on the First Iowa Humanities Festival

Reflections on the First Iowa Humanities Festival by Jennifer Shook: On Saturday, March 9, 2013, the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies co-hosted the inaugural Iowa Humanities Festival (IHF) with Salisbury House and Gardens in Des Moines. I was one of more than 150 Iowans in attendance. Participants included National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Jim Leach, Iowa Representative Helen Miller...

Translating Whitman

“Poets to Come” in Five Languages: Ed Folsom has spent his career deciphering the works of Walt Whitman. After decades of reading and re-reading the quintessential American author, Folsom has had some unexpected new insights into his work by reading translations from German, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, and Polish. In June 2011, Folsom, who is the Carver Professor in the Department of...

MOOCs: History, Hype, and Reality slideshow

MOOCS—History, Hype, and Reality: In February, UI Vice President for Research Dan Reed kicked off the Obermann Afternoons series with a talk detailing the history of so-called massive open online courses and their futures. Here are the slides from his talk.

Obermann Afternoons Explores Intersection Between Solar Cooker, Deforestation, and Women's Lives

Missing the Woods for the Trees: Mechanical Engineer and Feminist Anthropologist Connect the Local and Global — Women and children from northwest India spend more than 20 hours a week walking to existing stands of trees, cutting down wood, and carrying as much as 70 pounds home to use as cooking fuel. As part of an Obermann Working Group, H.S. Udaykumar (Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering...

Obermann Working Groups Taking Applications for 2013-2014

Explore New Work, Share Research, Organize a Symposium or Grant Proposal! The Obermann Working Groups provide space, structure, and discretionary funding for groups of faculty and advanced graduate students 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...

2014 Obermann Summer Seminar Directorship Now Open for Applications

Lead a Major Collaborative Project! The Summer Seminar Directorship is an opportunity to lead a major collaborative project that will result in some form of publication or public work. The director(s) of the seminar must be a University of Iowa faculty or full-time research staff. The seminar can include approximately a dozen participants. While most will be visiting scholars and researchers...

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Recent Events

Visions of Beirut: The Urban Life of Media Infrastructure

Friday, February 11, 2022 3:00pm to 4:15pm

Virtual

Join us for a virtual book talk from Hatim El-Hibri, author of Visions of Beirut: The Urban Life of Media Infrastructure.

El-Hibri is an Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies at George Mason University. His research focuses on global and transnational media studies, visual culture studies, Lebanon and the Middle East, urban studies, television studies, and media theory and history.

EXHIBITION SPOTLIGHT: Anne Frank (PT I)

Wednesday, February 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...

What Do We Mean by Research Now? — Collaborative Approaches to Understanding Memory and Minds

Monday, February 7, 2022 11:00am to 12:00pm

Virtual

How do scientists gather and sustain teams to understand infinitely complex mysteries—in this case, memory and the mind? And how are our departments, colleges, and disciplinary organizations adapting to the need for such deeply interdisciplinary teams? Join us on February 7, 2022, as a group of researchers from neuroscience, microbiology, and internal medicine share their process, challenges, and suggestions for the future of research.

Panelists:

Ted Abel, Professor, Chair, and DEO of...

Humanities for the Public Good (HPG) Summer Internship Info Session

Friday, February 4, 2022 9:00am to 10:00am

Virtual

Join Associate Director of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, Jennifer New, to learn more about Humanities for the Public Good (HPG) Summer 2022 internship opportunities. Internships are open to UI graduate students pursuing doctoral degrees.

Learn more about the available internships at https://uihumanitiesforthepublicgood.com/summer-2022-internships/.

The info session is free and open to all: https://uiowa.zoom.us/j/91762226223.

Practice-based, cross-disciplinary opportunities for...

Reproductive Justice: An Obermann Conversation

Wednesday, February 2, 2022 7:00pm to 8:00pm

Virtual

In the fight surrounding Roe v. Wade, it's easy to lose sight of the many other ways that access to reproductive healthcare can be limited or denied. Two Obermann scholars, Lina-Maria Murillo and Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz, talk with local healthcare providers and researchers to provide a fuller landscape of reproductive justice in the Midwest.

Featured speakers:

Lastascia Coleman, nurse-midwife, UIHC Nicole Novak, research faculty, College of Public Health Meagan Thompson, nurse-midwife, UIHC...

A Conversation about Reimagining the Intro to Graduate Studies Course in the Humanities

Wednesday, January 26, 2022 4:00pm to 5:00pm

Virtual

This spring, the Andrew W. Mellon-funded Humanities for the Public Good initiative will host a series of conversations to share what we’re learning about graduate education in the humanities. The first conversation features University of Iowa faculty who have redesigned “Introduction to Graduate Studies” courses in key departments, including those who received HPG course minigrants. Free and open to all, but registration is required.

For the last two years, a series of energetic Advisory Board...

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