News & Events

Upcoming Events & Deadlines

AI Is Not Your Friend: Cautions and Vents about Its Uses and Abuses in the Creation of Scholarly Publications

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

111 Church Street

On Tuesday, Oct. 6, from 3 to 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...

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...

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

Tuesday, October 13, 2026 5:00pm to 6:15pm

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 brief improvisational performance featuring dancers Bea Beaman and Trinity Woody performing alongside robots built by the University of Iowa College of Engineering, with narration by Eric Gidal and music by Jean-François...

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...

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News

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...

Lake Effect

In January 2012, Lisa Johnson participated in the Obermann Graduate Institute on Engagement and the Academy. Her final project was a collaborative arts ensemble between women at the Iowa Correctional Institute for Women and community partners. During the intense week-long Institute working with the public was front and center in Johnson’s mind, but having coffee with farmers near Estherville or...

Iowa Humanities Festival Features UI Faculty, NEH Chair Leach

Jim Leach, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, will speak at the first ever Iowa Humanities Festival in Des Moines on March 9. Collectors and collecting is the theme of this inaugural event, which brings together scholars, museum directors, librarians, and personal collectors from across the state...

Rewiring the Classroom

Teaching Teachers About Technology: This month, college educators are uniting at the University of Iowa to discuss the digital classroom, as well as teaching others how to use the powerful tools of the 21st century. On February 23, 2013, “Rewiring the Classroom,”a forum on digital practices and philosophies for the college classroom, will take place at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, and will...

Chicago Humanities Festival / ACLS Fellowship

Public Engagement Opportunity: The Chicago Humanities Festival has been selected as a host institution for the 2013 Public Fellows Program of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). The Mellon-funded initiative will bring two recent humanities PhD into the Chicago Humanities Festival organization, each serving as Program Manager for a period of two years (July 2013 through July 2015). This...

MOOCs: History, Hype, and Reality, a talk by VPR Dan Reed

Vice President for Research Dan Reed Launches Obermann Afternoons—occasional informal presentations on recent discoveries, compelling research questions, and current events. The New York Times declared 2012 "The Year of the MOOC" citing recent multi-million dollar ventures that make college and university courses available to large audiences via...

Judith Pascoe

In 2003 when Judith Pascoe (English, CLAS) joined an Obermann Cmiel Research Semester, “Sounding the Voice,” she had a topic in mind but did not anticipate that it would become the center of her work for the next few years. Several years later, The Sarah Siddons Audio Files won the prestigious Barnard Hewitt Book Award from the American Society for Theatre Research. The award was a major stamp of...

Author Luis Alberto Urrea Reads from New Novel

Author Luis Alberto Urrea will read from his new novel, Queen of America, during a reading on December 11 at 7 pm at The Englert Theatre. Urrea will be joined by Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez, fellow writer and co-director of The Latino Midwest, the 2012-13 Obermann Humanities Symposium. Urrea was born in Tijuana, Mexico to a Mexican father and an American mother....

2013 Obermann Graduate Institute Fellows

Eighteen UI graduate students from across campus, representing four different colleges, have been selected for the seventh annual Obermann Graduate Institute on Engagement and the Academy. This year's co-directors, Carolyn Colvin (Teaching & Learning) and Charles Connerly (Urban & Regional Planning), and Senior Graduate Fellow Eric Zimmer (History) will lead the weeklong program from January 14-18...

Lunchtime Lecture Series Focuses on Public Humanities in Contemporary Culture

PDH4L, or Public Digital Humanities for Lunch, is a new series sponsored by the Digital Studio for the Public Humanities to explore how digital technology is changing humanities, and explores some of the promises, challenges and surprises of digital learning. The talks are all in Room 3052 of the Main Library.Two talks are forthcoming in November. On November 15, UI HASTAC Scholar Audrey Altman...

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Recent Events

Stars and Stones

Thursday, May 5, 2022 5:30pm

Theatre Building

Iowa New Play Festival 2022 Production

Stars and Stones
By Emma Silverman
Directed by Sarah Gazdowicz
Thursday, May 5 at 5:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.
Alan MacVey Theatre, UI Theatre Building

A young Jewish woman reckons with the ghosts of her past and the apparitions of the present during and after a research trip to Poland. As she is launched back and forth through history, she is forced to consider the nature of her project while a scattering of strangers embark on their own moralistic...

Application Deadline: Summer 2022 Humanities Without Walls Seed Grants

Tuesday, May 3, 2022 5:00pm

In collaboration with the Andrew W. Mellon-funded Humanities Without Walls (HWW) project led by the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Obermann Center is offering summer 2022 Seed Grants to support the development of applications for the final HWW Grand Research Challenge. The Obermann Seed Grants provide up to $10,000 for faculty-led teams to develop proposals this summer which they will then submit to HWW, for a grant of up to $150,000 for...

Young Writers Respond

Friday, April 29, 2022 7:30pm to 8:30pm

Phillips Hall

This year, the Iowa Youth Writing Project, IC Speaks, and the UI Center for Human Rights have asked students to respond to the legacy of Anne Frank via various prompts—reflecting on Anne's experience as a hidden person and her message about social justice. In this event, writers from junior high age through undergraduates will share their entries. We'll hear from local voices, as well as from young people around the world who participated in these calls.

This event follows the Anne Frank Tree...

Anne Frank Tree Planting Ceremony

Friday, April 29, 2022 5:00pm

Macbride Hall

On April 29, 2022, a new tree will be planted on the University of Iowa’s Pentacrest—a sapling propagated from the immense horse chestnut tree that grew in the courtyard behind the annex where Anne Frank and her family hid for 761 days during World War II. This living symbol of Anne’s spirit and humanitarian message is the 13th Anne Frank Sapling to be planted in the United States.

This event is free and open to the public.

NOTICE: Because of weather, the 4/29 tree planting ceremony has been...

Amal Kassir Writing Workshop: Using Writing as a Tool for Healing

Friday, April 29, 2022 1:00pm to 2:30pm

North Hall

FREE – SPACE LIMITED TO 12 STUDENTS

SIGN UP: https://bit.ly/AmalWorkshop

Poet Amal Kassir will be taking part in the Anne Frank Tree Planting Ceremony on the UI Pentacrest at 5:00 pm on April 29. Prior to the ceremony, she has offered to lead a writing workshop for students in the School of Social Work.

Join Amal in a brave space, where we will be exploring our own stories for healing that may go beyond us, from within and back! Amal believes we have the capacity to control our narrative...

A Conversation with Amal Kassir: Celebrating Poetree

Thursday, April 28, 2022 9:30am to 10:30am

Phillips Hall

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