Upcoming Events

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...

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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

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...

Recent Events

Institute for Teaching with Writing promotional image

Institute for Teaching with Writing

Thursday, January 14, 2021 10:00am
Virtual

This series of four two-hour workshops is an introduction to teaching with writing. Topics include creating engaging writing assignments, responding to student writing efficiently and effectively, and using informal writing and peer workshops. Registration now open

NOTE: All instructors welcome, but this series is primarily designed for instructors teaching content-oriented courses (i.e. courses in the social sciences, history, art, philosophy, and the natural sciences) rather than writing...

Institute for Teaching with Writing promotional image

Institute for Teaching with Writing

Tuesday, January 12, 2021 10:00am
Virtual

This series of four two-hour workshops is an introduction to teaching with writing. Topics include creating engaging writing assignments, responding to student writing efficiently and effectively, and using informal writing and peer workshops. Registration now open

NOTE: All instructors welcome, but this series is primarily designed for instructors teaching content-oriented courses (i.e. courses in the social sciences, history, art, philosophy, and the natural sciences) rather than writing...

Peer-to-Peer Exchange of Pandemic Teaching Practices promotional image

Peer-to-Peer Exchange of Pandemic Teaching Practices

Tuesday, December 15, 2020 3:30pm
Virtual

Even as many of us long for a return to an in-person, on-site work life, we’ve also been learning valuable new practices—for teaching, for meetings, for collaboration, and more. Over the next few months, the Obermann Center will be collecting Pandemic Practices to share, beginning with new practices developed for teaching and learning, practices we want to remember and refine in the months to come. To inspire you, we’re offering Prairie Lights gift certificates at the end of the year for the...

Obermann Around the Table: A View of Bilingual Education in Iowa promotional image

Obermann Around the Table: A View of Bilingual Education in Iowa

Wednesday, December 9, 2020 7:00pm to 8:15pm
Virtual

The Obermann Center for Advanced Studies has launched a new series called Obermann Around the Table--in honor of much missed in-person conversations in our library. Our hope is that the series will provide a welcoming, nonjudgmental space in which colleagues, neighbors, and new friends can address difficult subjects that impact our communities and reflect on ways to move toward more just and generous communities. We hope you'll come to listen and learn and stay to share your thoughts and...

Podcasting at Iowa and Beyond: Calling all podcasters, podcast fans, and podcast-curious at Iowa promotional image

Podcasting at Iowa and Beyond: Calling all podcasters, podcast fans, and podcast-curious at Iowa

Friday, December 4, 2020 12:30pm to 1:30pm
Virtual

Gather with the Humanities for the Public Good and the Obermann Center to talk all things podcast at the University of Iowa. Hosted by Laura Perry, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow with HPG and a former podcast editor and radio show host, this conversation will cover the wide world of podcasts, showcase exciting podcasts happening on our campus, as well as local resources to support podcasting. Plus, get a sneak preview and find out more about the upcoming HPG podcast series, which will bring together...

Book Talk with Rhondda Robinson Thomas, author of Call My Name, Clemson: Documenting the Black Experience in an American University Community promotional image

Book Talk with Rhondda Robinson Thomas, author of Call My Name, Clemson: Documenting the Black Experience in an American University Community

Monday, November 30, 2020 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Virtual

Join Rhondda Robinson Thomas, Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature, Clemson University, as she discusses her new book, Call My Name, Clemson: Documenting the Black Experience in an American University Community, published this month by the University of Iowa Press. 

In the book, Professor Thomas traces her public history project, Call My Name: African Americans in Early Clemson University History, which helped convince Clemson University to reexamine and reconceptualize the institution’s...