Upcoming Events

A Conversation with Scholars At Risk promotional image

A Conversation with Scholars At Risk

Wednesday, March 5, 2025 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Old Capitol Museum
Join us for a public conversation for faculty, students and staff from across campus about the work of Scholars at Risk to protect and promote academic freedom worldwide. SAR staff representatives Clare Farne Robinson (Director of Advocacy Programs) and Adam Braver (Student Advocacy Seminar Coordinator and Author) will offer remarks on the current state of academic freedom globally, the evolving definition and implementation framework for academic freedom within international law and policy, and...
Writing for The Conversation: Graduate Students promotional image

Writing for The Conversation: Graduate Students

Thursday, March 6, 2025 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Virtual
Join the Office of the Vice President for Research and the Graduate College for a virtual introduction to The Conversation US with Kristy Nabhan-Warren, Associate Vice President for Research.  The Conversation is an independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of academic experts for the public good. With a monthly readership of 20 million, The Conversation expertly shares a scholar’s expertise far beyond the borders of our state. Articles are geared toward the general...
Locating Reproductive Justice: Global & Regional Perspectives — 2024–25 Obermann Arts & Humanities Symposium promotional image

Locating Reproductive Justice: Global & Regional Perspectives — 2024–25 Obermann Arts & Humanities Symposium

Thursday, March 27 to Friday, March 28, 2025 (all day)
As calls for transnational solidarity among reproductive justice movements emerge, communities are asking how reproductive liberation is tethered to various social movements. Directed by Lina-Maria Murillo (Gender, Women's, & Sexuality Studies and History) and Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz (Communication Studies and Gender, Women's, & Sexuality Studies), this symposium brings together scholars and artists with local, regional, and global perspectives to bear on the pursuit of reproductive justice as we...
Writing for The Conversation: Informational Lunch for Grad Students and Postdocs promotional image

Writing for The Conversation: Informational Lunch for Grad Students and Postdocs

Friday, April 11, 2025 12:00pm to 1:30pm
111 Church Street
Join the Office of the Vice President for Research, the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, and the Graduate College for lunch and an introduction to pitching your research to The Conversation US with Kristy Nabhan-Warren, Associate Vice President for Research.  The Conversation is an independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of academic experts for the public good. With a monthly readership of 20 million, The Conversation expertly shares a scholar’s expertise far...
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Upcoming Application Deadlines

Upcoming Application Deadlines

Application Deadline: Obermann End-of-Year Writing Retreat promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann End-of-Year Writing Retreat

Friday, March 14, 2025 5:00pm
Have you been waiting all school year to make serious progress on your book manuscript, article, or grant application? Jump-start your summer writing project at the Obermann End-of-Year Writing Retreat May 12–16, 2025! Fifteen participants will enjoy a week of quiet productivity apart from the distractions of campus at the beautiful North Ridge Pavilion in Coralville. Daily catered lunches will provide an opportunity for exchange and discussion with other writers across campus. Each day will...
Application Deadline: Obermann Working Groups (2025–26) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Working Groups (2025–26)

Wednesday, April 9, 2025 5:00pm
Obermann Center Working Groups provide space, structure, and discretionary funding ($500 per year for 3 years) 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 explore new work and to share their own research, to organize a symposium, and to develop grant proposals. This program allows participants from across the campus and beyond to explore complex issues at a...
Fall Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop promotional image

Fall Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop

Wednesday, September 24, 2025 5:00pm
Co-sponsored by the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and the Office of the Vice President for Research, Book Ends—Obermann/OVPR 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. Book Ends brings together a panel of senior scholars for a candid, constructive three...

News

Cultural Postmortem 2020

How can artists and scholars help the nation contend with the peril in which we find ourselves—starting with our own campuses? The 2020 US presidential race was one of the most politically and ideologically divisive and contentious races that we’ve ever seen. As the events of January 6, 2021 have illustrated, the nation remains divided: political leaders at the highest level are challenging...

New Voices, Refreshing Perspectives: Invite-a-Guest-to-Class Mini Grants

Are you teaching an undergraduate or graduate course that features work by an expert outside the University of Iowa? Do you have a colleague from another institution who could bring a thought-provoking cross-disciplinary perspective to an issue you’re addressing in your course? If you would like to invite a practitioner or expert from the public sector to speak in a course you are teaching this...

Meet the Podcasters! Three UI faculty-podcasters pull back the curtain on their process

Imagine a world without recorded sound. From film soundtracks to car alarms, many of us are so steeped in sound at every moment that we would instantly notice its absence. Since the inception of radio in 1895, we have steadily increased the technology and tools for making and sharing sound. Each step has made it easier and less costly for a person with a microphone and some equipment to capture...
Rhondda Robinson Thomas

Book Talk with Rhondda Robinson Thomas, author of Call My Name, Clemson: Documenting the Black Experience in an American University Community , Nov. 30

In the summer of 2007, a young scholar named Rhondda Robinson Thomas attended a new faculty orientation at Clemson University. Thomas was unfamiliar with Clemson, which is a public, land-grant research university in South Carolina, and was surprised to learn that the campus was built on the site of American statesman John C. Calhoun and Floride Calhoun’s Fort Hill Plantation. In fact, their home...
Green, Fair, & Prosperous book cover

Planning Scholar Suggests Iowa Is at a Crossroads, and Proposes a Path Forward

In 1900, Iowa was the tenth largest state in the country. A hundred years later, it was the thirtieth largest and had experienced the biggest decline in its population rank of any state. Today, Iowa is at a crossroads. Its population is more urban, less white, and more environmentally challenged than its longtime reputation suggests. In a new book, Green, Fair, and Prosperous: Paths to a...

Exploring the Echo Chamber: Brian Ekdale PI on $1M Grant to Study Social Media Algorithms & Extremism

Let's say you want to watch a news clip about Confederate monuments. You search YouTube and choose a video from what appears to be a randomly generated list of results. When the video ends, YouTube autoplays another video and recommends dozens more—and likely they’re the sort of thing you actually might watch, because that list is generated by algorithms that process your YouTube viewing history...

Recent Events

Craft Critique Culture Graduate Conference: Black Legacies promotional image

Craft Critique Culture Graduate Conference: Black Legacies

Thursday, April 4, 2024 12:00pm
On April 4–6, 2024, English graduate students are hosting the 23rd annual Craft Critique Culture interdisciplinary graduate conference on the University of Iowa campus. This year’s conference theme is “Black Legacies.”
What She Said — A Workshop on Empowering Women’s Voices in Celebration of Women’s History Month promotional image

What She Said — A Workshop on Empowering Women’s Voices in Celebration of Women’s History Month

Saturday, March 30, 2024 9:00am to 12:00pm
Our voices are an important indicator of who we are. Female-presenting speakers often learn self-undermining speaking habits from the people and society around them. How does the voice contribute to our sense of presence and how others perceive us? Tone, inflection, pace, and volume are some of the vocal elements that provide clues for the listener as to what we think and feel. In this workshop, UI Theatre Arts professor Mary Mayo will invite you to develop a greater awareness of your voice and...
2024 Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day promotional image

2024 Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day

Saturday, March 30, 2024 9:00am to 4:30pm
MacLean Hall
The daylong program includes workshops, interactive talks, math related games and panels of professionals with math-related jobs. Sonia Kovalevsky Day is an opportunity for high school female students to engage in a day of networking, mentoring, and fun!

Stephen Best: “Baldwin's Inarticulacy”

Friday, March 29, 2024 3:30pm to 5:00pm
English-Philosophy Building
The Department of English and Obermann Center are hosting Stephen Best on Friday, March 29 at 3:30 p.m. in 304 EPB (Gerber). UI PhD candidate Sarah Frank will introduce Professor Best and UI Professor Deborah Whaley will serve as respondent. Stephen Best (Berkeley) is Rachael Anderson Stageberg Chair in English and Director of the Townsend Center for the Humanities. One of the most important scholars of his generation, Professor Best has published two acclaimed monographs: "The Fugitive's...
New Histories for Reproductive Justice: Authors in Conversation promotional image

New Histories for Reproductive Justice: Authors in Conversation

Thursday, March 28, 2024 7:00pm
Prairie Lights Books
Professors Natalie Lira, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; and Angela Hume, University of California, Berkeley, will be in conversation with each other about their recent books on the topics of abortion and the history of sterilization. Their work is deeply informed by and grounded in a reproductive justice framework.
Global Visiting Scholar Presentation: Policy Engagement & Development for Women’s Reproductive Health in India promotional image

Global Visiting Scholar Presentation: Policy Engagement & Development for Women’s Reproductive Health in India

Tuesday, March 26, 2024 1:30pm to 2:20pm
College of Public Health Building
Join global visiting scholar, Dr. M. Sivakamy, as she speaks about her research in gender-based policy and women's health in India.