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Upcoming Application Deadlines

Upcoming Application Deadlines

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Spring 2027) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Spring 2027)

Friday, September 18, 2026 11:59pm
111 Church Street

The UI Obermann Center for Advanced studies is accepting applications for Spring 2027 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...

Application Deadline: Book Ends, Obermann Book Completion Workshop promotional image

Application Deadline: Book Ends, Obermann Book Completion Workshop

Wednesday, September 23, 2026 5:00pm
Virtual

Books Ends supports University of Iowa faculty from disciplines in which publishing a monograph is required for tenure and promotion. The award is designed to assist UI faculty members with significant research responsibilities turn promising manuscripts into important, field-changing, published books.

Book Ends brings together a panel of senior scholars for a candid, constructive three-hour workshop on a faculty member’s book manuscript. The award provides a $500 honorarium for two external...

Application Deadline: Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grants (Summer 2027) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grants (Summer 2027)

Wednesday, October 7, 2026 5:00pm
111 Church Street

Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grants (IDRG) foster collaborative scholarship and creative work by offering recipients time and space to exchange new ideas leading to invention, creation, and publication. IDRG groups work at the Obermann Center for two weeks, usually in July and/or August. Applicants propose work on a project with colleagues from across the University, across disciplines within their own department, or with colleagues from other parts of the country or the world. Projects...

Application Deadline: Obermann Symposium Directorship (2027–28) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Symposium Directorship (2027–28)

Wednesday, October 28, 2026 5:00pm
111 Church Street

Is there a burning topic in your discipline or a topic that cuts across disciplines that we should bring to campus? Is there a format for the conversation that can energize an intellectual community around that topic? That might be the perfect topic for an Obermann Symposium!

In addition to a compelling topic, we invite co-directors to propose national and international speakers who can offer richly diverse perspectives on the symposium theme. We also want to highlight the work of UI and local...

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...

News

Christie Vogler

First Humanities 3-Minute Thesis Winner Crowned

Making a case for the presence of a female medical practitioner working out of a villa in Sicily, circa 1-3 A.D., anthropology PhD candidate Christie Vogler wowed the judges and the crowd at the first-ever Humanities 3MT competition on September 27. The Obermann Center hosted the event to celebrate and share the work of the UI's humanities graduate students, and to give them a chance to practice...

A Clown Walks Into the Matrix...

Or how one group is searching for the holy grail of live entertainment Paul Kalina is wearing a suit that has three kinds of technology embedded in it. He is a clown who has performed bedside for kids in hospitals and on the barest of stages. But in June 2019 he is in Prague for the world’s largest festival of theater and stage design, the PQ—or Prague Quadrennial. He is going on stage...

Why You – Yes, YOU Who Is Only Partway into a Dissertation and Who Doesn’t Have Time – Need to Do the Humanities 3MT!

There was one humanities finalist in last year’s University of Iowa 3MT competition--Miriam Janechek. She was in the midst of writing her English literature dissertation about 19th-century Victorian children’s literature and religion, while simultaneously caring for a baby and a toddler and living in St. Paul, MN. It would have been easy for her to view the competition, in which participants...

Executive Directors of MLA, AHA to Participate in Humanities Career Diversity Symposium

On September 13 and 14, 2019, Paula Krebs and Jim Grossman—executive directors of the Modern Language Association and American Historical Association, respectively—will join other national leaders of engaged graduate education for a UI-led symposium on public scholarship, experiential learning, and humanities graduate education. University of Iowa PhD students who participated in this summer's...

Relying on the Unreliable: Historian Catherine Stewart Examines 1930s Domestic Workers

Obermann Fellow-in-Residence Catherine Stewart’s current book project, The New Maid, relies in part on a highly unreliable source—student essays. Specifically, Stewart is interested in what is divulged through a cache of papers written by students at a private women’s college in the South in response to the topic, “Negro servants in my household.” Written between 1928 and 1940, the nearly 100...
Ashley Cheyemi McNeil

Ashley Cheyemi McNeil Appointed 2019-21 HPG Postdoctoral Scholar

Interdisciplinary scholar Dr. Ashley Cheyemi Rae McNeil has been appointed the 2019–2021 Postdoctoral Scholar for the Andrew W. Mellon–Funded Humanities for the Public Good (HPG) initiative. McNeil earned her bi-national PhD in English from Georgia State University and in American Studies from the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany. As...

Recent Events

Racism and Education: A Discussion promotional image

Racism and Education: A Discussion

Monday, February 12, 2024 2:00pm to 3:30pm
Virtual

Join us for a discussion on teaching about race and racism amidst current events.

Conflict and Collaboration: Trauma-Informed Responses to Teaching Challenges promotional image

Conflict and Collaboration: Trauma-Informed Responses to Teaching Challenges

Friday, January 26, 2024 1:00pm to 2:30pm
Virtual

Bridget McCarthy from the Association of Mental Health Coordinators (AMHC) will give a presentation, which will be followed by a Q&A regarding what trauma-informed support in the classroom looks like and how to implement it in our own work. While the presentation will be geared towards the teaching of performance, anyone responsible for students in a classroom can benefit from this knowledge.

Bridget McCarthy is an artist, advocate, and a mental health coordinator for theater, TV and Film. She...

Opera Studies Forum Lecture with Anna Barker promotional image

Opera Studies Forum Lecture with Anna Barker

Wednesday, January 24, 2024 5:30pm to 6:30pm
University Capitol Centre

Dr. Anna Barker will give a lecture on the opera Carmen, which will be streamed in HD in cinemas on Saturday, Jan. 27.

Anna Barker received her PhD in Comparative Literature in 2002 with a dissertation in translation studies. At the University of Iowa, she has taught courses in the English Department, in Comparative Literature, in Russian Literature, and in the Honors Program. Her areas of interest include 19th-century Russian and European literature, Russian cultural history, 19th century...

Out of the Archive Film Series: Oscar Micheaux's 'Body and Soul' with Live Musical Accompaniment promotional image

Out of the Archive Film Series: Oscar Micheaux's 'Body and Soul' with Live Musical Accompaniment

Thursday, January 18, 2024 6:15pm to 9:30pm
FilmScene (Chauncey)

Please join us at FilmScene for the continuation of "Out of the Archive: Envisioning Blackness," a monthly screening and discussion series that celebrates the vibrant  tradition of Black cinema by featuring rarely screened, newly restored, and archivally-engaged films. Tickets are pay-what-you-can (with students, in particular, encouraged to pick $0). Join us before each screening for a free dinner reception catered by local restaurants, and stay after each film for post-screening conversations...

Canceled
Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing, Session II: Working with Graduate Students promotional image

Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing, Session II: Working with Graduate Students

Wednesday, January 10, 2024 2:00pm to 4:00pm
Virtual

Teaching Data Visualization and Communication: Do you struggle to teach your students how to best graph and visualize their data and then present their data? Join us for a one-hour workshop focused on helping students grasp principles of graphic design, data visualization (graphing and figure preparation), and effective slides for polished, persuasive presentations. After attending this workshop, you will have a clear set of expectations to share with your students on what makes for effective...

Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing I: Making Writing Assignments Creative Across the Disciplines promotional image

Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing I: Making Writing Assignments Creative Across the Disciplines

Wednesday, January 10, 2024 10:00am to 12:00pm
Virtual

Tired of the "research paper" assignment? Bored reading reflection papers? Interested in using writing to promote student learning but not sure how to make it fun? Join us for a lively discussion of how to make writing assignments more creative and engaging. See examples of innovative assignments from instructors across campus, hear from a panel of faculty who have redesigned their approaches, and workshop ideas to use in your own courses.

This is the first of two sessions offered by the Instit...