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.

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News

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...
Peggy Schwab

Obermann Spelman Rockefeller Community Scholar Named

Peggy Schwab, a second-year master's candidate in the UI College of Education's School Counseling program and Iowa LEND (Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Related Disabilities), is the 2020-21 Obermann Spelman Rockefeller Community Scholar. For this academic year, Peggy will work with Neighborhood NESTS, a new community collaborative initiative. Nurturing Every Student...

Graduate Students Build Campus-Community Connections, Explore New Careers in Summer Internships

For nine graduate students at the University of Iowa, this was not the summer internship they had anticipated. Unlike summer 2019, this second summer of the Humanities for the Public Good (HPG) internship program came with many unexpected twists and challenges. As the University of Iowa moved to virtual learning, interns joined partner organizations and took on new responsibilities just as many of...

Graduate Students Build Campus-Community Connections, Explore New Careers in Summer Internships

For nine graduate students at the University of Iowa, this was not the summer internship they had anticipated. Unlike summer 2019, this second summer of the Humanities for the Public Good (HPG) internship program came with many unexpected twists and challenges. As the University of Iowa moved to virtual learning, interns joined partner organizations and took on new responsibilities just as many of...

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...