Upcoming Events

NEA Big Read | Free Book Pick Up promotional image

NEA Big Read | Free Book Pick Up

Monday, January 20, 9:00am to Wednesday, February 12, 2025 5:00pm
Stanley Museum of Art
The Stanley Museum of Art will launch its National Endowment for the Arts Big Read program on Jan. 20, 2025, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This event features a community wide reading of the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison. Pick up a free copy of Beloved at 12 pickup locations across Iowa City between Jan. 20 and Feb. 12, 2025.  Register here to pickup a free copy: https://uiowa.doubleknot.com/event/nea-big-reads-beloved-by-toni-morriso... An email confirmation must be presented to claim a book...
Don't Panic! Rethinking How We Frame Difficult Content in the Classroom promotional image

Don't Panic! Rethinking How We Frame Difficult Content in the Classroom

Thursday, February 20, 2025 4:00pm
Phillips Hall
Join us for a conversation about trigger warnings, content alerts, and other approaches to teaching potentially upsetting topics — led by Newell Ann Van Auken, Associate Professor of Instruction, Division of World Languages, Literatures, & Cultures. Co-hosted by the Center for Language and Culture Learning, the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies (CAPS), and the Chinese Humanities and Arts Workshop (CHAW), an Obermann Working Group.
Artist Talk with Jerron Herman promotional image

Artist Talk with Jerron Herman

Thursday, February 20, 2025 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Public Space One
Join us for an inspiring conversation with acclaimed choreographer and disabled artist Jerron Herman, an artist compelled to create images of freedom.
Book Matters: Brady G’Sell and Meena Khandelwal in conversation with Elana Buch promotional image

Book Matters: Brady G’Sell and Meena Khandelwal in conversation with Elana Buch

Tuesday, February 25, 2025 7:00pm to 8:30pm
Prairie Lights Books
Join us for a reading and discussion, co-sponsored by Prairie Lights, to celebrate recent works from Brady G’Sell and Meena Khandelwal, faculty in the University of Iowa Department of Anthropology and the Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies Program. After the reading, Elana Buch, associate professor of anthropology, will join G’Sell and Khandelwal for a conversation and Q&A with the audience. Light refreshments will follow.
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Upcoming Application Deadlines

Upcoming Application Deadlines

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Fall 2025) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Fall 2025)

Saturday, February 15, 2025 11:59pm
The UI Obermann Center for Advanced studies is currently accepting applications for its new International Fellowships Program, which 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

Wednesday, February 19, 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.
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

Mini Grants to Bring Virtual Guest Speakers to Your Class

APPLICATION Are you teaching an undergraduate or graduate course that features work by a colleague outside the University of Iowa? Do you have a colleague from another discipline who could bring a thought-provoking cross-disciplinary perspective to an issue you’re addressing in your course? Or would you like to invite a practitioner or an expert from the public sector whose perspective would...
Laura Perry with dog

Laura Perry Joins Obermann

Laura Perry is joining the Obermann Center staff for the next two years as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow with the Humanities for the Public Good project. Born in Southern California, Laura recently received her doctoral degree in Literary Studies from the University of Wisconsin­-Madison. In addition to serving as the managing editor of the digital magazine Edge Effects, she was a project assistant...

Humanities Without Walls Consortium Awarded Mellon Grant Renewal

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been awarded a $5 million grant renewal from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its Humanities Without Walls (HWW) initiative at the Humanities Research Institute (HRI). Now a 16-member consortium of universities, including the University of Iowa, HWW fosters collaborative research and explores the contributions of humanities in the workplace...

Healing the Academy: HuMetricsHSS trains scholars, administration in values-based metrics

“Sacrifice?” “Out!” shouts someone at a table to vehement nods. “Generosity?” “In!” another table cheerfully declares. Humane metrics In ways we couldn’t have anticipated, a workshop collaboratively hosted earlier this year by the Obermann Center, the Vice President for Research, International Programs, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences was valuable preparation for a campus engaging in...
Dominic Dongilli

Meet Dominic Dongilli: HPG's New Graduate Research Assistant

Introducing the 2020–21 Humanities for the Public Good Graduate Research Assistant Arriving at the University of Iowa in Fall 2018 to begin his graduate studies, Dominic Dongilli knew that he wanted to participate in his new community in multiple ways. It was not going to be only about the library and classes. With that intention in mind, he applied for the new Humanities for the Public Good...

Jua Kali: Brian Ekdale Mines Lessons from Kenya's Scrappy Gig Economy

Brian Ekdale, a filmmaker and media scholar, is pondering what Kenya’s robust gig economy has to teach us at this moment of global crisis. Jua kali describes the country's scrappy, entrepreneurial network of artisans, manual laborers, and tradespeople who fix things, make small-batch wares, and resell found or wholesale merchandise. The term has evolved to refer to a kind of work culture and ethos...

Recent Events

Fall Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop promotional image

Fall Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop

Thursday, September 19, 2024 5:00pm
Co-sponsored by the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and the Office of the Vice President for Research, Books 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. Applications for upcoming Book Ends workshops are due Sept. 19, 2024 (5 p.m.).
Application Deadline: Mellon Sawyer Seminar promotional image

Application Deadline: Mellon Sawyer Seminar

Monday, September 16, 2024 5:00pm
The Mellon Foundation’s Sawyer Seminars program was established in 1994 to provide support for comparative research on historical and contemporary topics of scholarly significance. The seminars, named in honor of the Foundation’s long-serving third president, John E. Sawyer, bring together faculty, foreign visitors, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students from a variety of fields — mainly, but not exclusively, in the arts, humanities, and interpretive social sciences — for intensive study of...
Book Ends Information Session (virtual) promotional image

Book Ends Information Session (virtual)

Wednesday, August 28, 2024 8:30am to 9:00am
Virtual
Co-sponsored by the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and the Office of the Vice President for Research, Book Ends — an 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. Read more about the program. Interested applicants are invited to learn more about...
Ten Years Too Long: Making the Flint Water Crisis Public Archive promotional image

Ten Years Too Long: Making the Flint Water Crisis Public Archive

Wednesday, July 10, 2024 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Virtual
The Flint Water Crisis Public Archive aims to aid community leaders, researchers, and the general public in better understanding what happened during the Flint Water Crisis. Without our intervention, we risk losing access to documents released regarding the crisis, stripping us of the opportunity to learn about these important events and their ongoing implications for communities in Michigan and beyond. Panelists will include the project's founder, who will discuss the upcoming launch of the...
Dissertation Camp promotional image

Dissertation Camp

Friday, June 7, 2024 9:00am to 1:00pm
Virtual
The 2024 dissertation writing camp for graduate students
Dissertation Camp promotional image

Dissertation Camp

Thursday, June 6, 2024 9:00am to 1:00pm
Virtual
The 2024 dissertation writing camp for graduate students