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

Interdisciplinary Research Grant Groups in Residence for July

Three groups of scholars are currently in residence at the Obermann Center throughout July as part of the Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grants (IDRG). These grants foster collaborative scholarship by offering recipients with intensive time, as well as space, in which to exchange new ideas leading to invention, creation, and publication. Past IDRG recipients have created a music therapy app...

Rising Waters, Rapid Changes

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...

Recent Events

Application Deadline: Sawyer Seminar Dissertation Fellowships promotional image

Application Deadline: Sawyer Seminar Dissertation Fellowships

Tuesday, January 25, 2022 5:00pm

The Obermann Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Iowa welcomes applications for two academic year graduate dissertation fellowships with a stipend of $20,938 each (tuition scholarship up to $750 per semester, 50 percent of mandatory fees, and a contribution towards their health and dental insurance) for dissertation research, funded through the generosity of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  The fellowships are for the 2022-2023 academic year and include participation in the Mellon...

Let Me Be Myself: The Life Story of Anne Frank promotional image

Let Me Be Myself: The Life Story of Anne Frank

Tuesday, January 18 to Wednesday, March 2, 2022 (all day)
Old Capitol Museum

Curated by the Anne Frank Center USA, the Let Me Be Myself exhibit provides an in-depth history of Frank and her family, connecting Anne’s experiences to those of contemporary teens who have experienced prejudice and discrimination. The exhibition parallels Frank's life story with the present and makes the fate of the millions of victims of the persecution of the Jews during the Second World War personal and palpable.

After the exhibit leaves the UI, it will travel to a half dozen Iowa...

Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing promotional image

Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing

Thursday, January 6, 2022 10:00am to 12:00pm
Virtual

This is the second in a series of two workshops on teaching with writing on January 4th and 6th from 10 am to 12 pm. The January 4th workshop will focus on designing meaningful writing assignments, teaching analytical reading skills, and scaffolding students through the writing process. The January 6th workshop will focus on responding to and assessing student writing, and dealing with grammar and mechanics.

Faculty and TAs in all disciplines, departments, and colleges (particularly instructors...

Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing promotional image

Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing

Tuesday, January 4, 2022 10:00am to 12:00pm
Virtual

This is the first in a series of two workshops on teaching with writing on January 4th and 6th from 10 am to 12 pm. The January 4th workshop will focus on designing meaningful writing assignments, teaching analytical reading skills, and scaffolding students through the writing process. The January 6th workshop will focus on responding to and assessing student writing, and dealing with grammar and mechanics.

Faculty and TAs in all disciplines, departments, and colleges (particularly instructors...

Economic Development as Social Justice — An Obermann Conversation promotional image

Economic Development as Social Justice — An Obermann Conversation

Thursday, December 2, 2021 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Virtual

This summer, a new Story Map of Black-owned businesses in Johnson County was created. It connects users to a rich and ever-growing directory of businesses and entrepreneurs in the eastern Iowa corridor and challenges us to understand the connection between economic opportunities and social justice. Our speakers will help us understand historic barriers faced by BIPOC people interested in starting a business, and why tearing down these barriers matters to all of us.

Speakers:

Daria Fisher...
Understanding Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: a method for facilitating useful feedback sessions on creative work promotional image

Understanding Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: a method for facilitating useful feedback sessions on creative work

Thursday, December 2, 2021 11:00am to 12:30pm
Virtual

Vincent Thomas of Towson University worked with Liz Lerman for years as part of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and has an intimate and multi-dimensional understanding of how to apply the CRP across disciplines. In this talk, Professor Thomas will introduce the process, guide us through its application, and answer questions about how to adapt the process to all forms of creative work.

Free and open to all. Join us on Zoom.

This event is hosted by the Department of Theatre Arts, with support from...