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.

View more events

Spacer

News

HWW logo

Apply for the Summer '23 Humanities Without Walls Predoctoral Career Diversity Workshop

Launched in 2015 as an initiative of the Humanities Without Walls (HWW) consortium, this annual workshop welcomes 30 participants each summer from higher education institutions across the United States. HWW Summer Workshop Fellows work in a variety of academic disciplines. They are scholars and practitioners who bring experience in community building, museum curation, filmmaking, radio programming, social media, project management, research, writing, and teaching....
Sharon Yam and Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz

A Project Postponed: Scholars Take Interdisciplinary Grant Project on the Road

Jennifer New
When the pandemic postponed Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz (Communication Studies and GWSS, University of Iowa) and Shui-yin Sharon Yam's (Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies, University of Kentucky) Obermann residency for their Interdisciplinary Research Grant project last summer, they decided to postpone their work until they could meet in person. Though the Center remained closed to faculty this...
John Rapson sitting at the piano

John Rapson: Looking Back at a Generous Collaborator

Jennifer New
In the summer of 2014, it wasn't uncommon to find two faculty members padding around the Obermann Center in bare feet as they dashed from their upstairs offices to the downstairs library to watch movies. While it appeared to be a scholarly form of summer camp, John Rapson (School of Music) and Paul Kalina (Theatre) were deep in research as they broke down how music and movement interacted in old...
Virtual Reality Screenshot

Using Virtual Reality to Train Math Teachers

Jenna Hammerich
Most children in the U.S. struggle to learn mathematics, with 50 to 75% of students scoring below proficient on achievement tests in grades 4 through 12. Children with disabilities such as autism tend to fare even worse. Clearly, math teachers must be equipped to educate students who require varying levels of support—but, for the most part, they aren’t. Logistical issues inherent in conventional...
Dominic Dongilli at his internship

Summer Interns at the Halfway Mark: A growing tomato, a gift from Brokaw, and nudity in the archives

Jennifer New
It is around the halfway point of so many projects when the work is most difficult. The newness has worn off; the end is still out of reach, but close enough to give us an uneasy reminder of how much is yet to be completed. This is the experience of the ten UI graduate students who are at the midway point of their Humanities for the Public Good (HPG) internships. For eight weeks, they are working...
Teachers and children in classroom

A Thousand Prospects for Research: A Spelman Rockefeller Community Scholar Reflects

In late summer 2020, a new community initiative was formed in response to the impact of the pandemic on K12 students: Neighborhood NESTS. The Obermann Center responded by creating a new graduate research position, the Obermann Spelman Rockefeller Community Scholar, to work with the initiative, providing program management and deepening the project through disciplinary research. In this article...
View more articles
Subscribe to newsletter

Recent Events

Iowa Writing Centers Consortium Conference promotional image

Iowa Writing Centers Consortium Conference

Friday, April 8, 2022 8:30am to 3:30pm
English-Philosophy Building

The Iowa Writing Centers Consortium Conference brings together college and university writing center staffs and students from throughout Iowa and neighboring states. The 2022 Conference will take place on Friday, April 8th, 2022 on the first floor of the English Philosophy Building from 8:30 am - 3:30 pm.

Conference theme: Lessons from Covid: Losses, gains, discoveries and insights. See here for registration informaton and the schedule.

Registration is $15 for students and $30 for professional...

Invisible Neighbors: Latinx Immigrants in Eastern Iowa — An Obermann Conversation promotional image

Invisible Neighbors: Latinx Immigrants in Eastern Iowa — An Obermann Conversation

Tuesday, April 5, 2022 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Virtual

Every week, new arrivals come to our area from Mexico and Central America. Many come with few possessions and only the thinnest personal network. These largely invisible newcomers to our community have immediate needs, some of which are being addressed by organizations like Open Heartland and UI-sponsored legal and medical clinics. We’ll hear more about our Latinx immigrant neighbors, their needs, and the work currently happening to assist their arrival.

Speakers:

Deb Dunkhase is the founder...

Tasks in Action! — A Workshop by Dr. Julio Torres, UC-Irvine promotional image

Tasks in Action! — A Workshop by Dr. Julio Torres, UC-Irvine

Saturday, April 2, 2022 10:00am to 12:00pm
Virtual

As part of the Teaching and Learning Heritage Languages Series, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Obermann Center present "Tasks in Action!", an interactive workshop with Dr. Julio Torres (UC-Irvine). The workshop will cover pedagogical aspects of the heritage language classroom, with a specific focus on how "tasks" can be used in courses at all levels, including language, culture, literature, linguistics, and courses for specific purposes. Designed for language faculty at the K...

Heritage Language Education: A Talk by Dr. Julio Torres (UC-Irvine) promotional image

Heritage Language Education: A Talk by Dr. Julio Torres (UC-Irvine)

Friday, April 1, 2022 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Virtual

As part of the Teaching and Learning Heritage Languages Series, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Obermann Center present "Heritage Language Education," a talk by Dr. Julio Torres of UC-Irvine. 

ECO SOMA by Petra Kuppers Reading and Book Release Party promotional image

ECO SOMA by Petra Kuppers Reading and Book Release Party

Thursday, March 31, 2022 6:00pm to 8:45pm
The Tuesday Agency

Please join us in welcoming Petra Kuppers to Iowa City for a reading and discussion about her most recent book Eco Soma: Pain and Joy in Speculative Performance Encounters (University of Minnesota Press, 2022) 

Dear Kitty: The Act of Keeping a Diary promotional image

Dear Kitty: The Act of Keeping a Diary

Wednesday, March 30, 2022 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Iowa City Public Library

As we await the arrival of the Anne Frank Tree, which will be planted on the University of Iowa Pentacrest on April 29, 2022, we encourage people of all ages to read the book that is at the heart of this event. Better yet—read it in community!

To provide context to your reading, we’re offering three in-person discussions at the Iowa City Public Library (123 S. Linn St., Iowa City). All of the discussions are free and open to the general public. 

In this second session, Dr. Kirsten Kumpf Baele...