Upcoming Events & Deadlines

Planning and Writing Successful Grant Proposals in the Creative Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities Seminar promotional image

Planning and Writing Successful Grant Proposals in the Creative Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities Seminar

Thursday, January 14, 2027 8:30am to 12:30pm
Iowa Memorial Union (IMU)

The Research Development Office is hosting an in-person grant writing seminar, Planning and Writing Successful Grant Proposals in the Creative Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities, that will be held on Wednesday, Jan. 13 from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Thursday, Jan. 14 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the IMU. The seminar is presented by AtKisson Training Group.

This seminar will cover fundamental concepts of proposal planning and writing for the Arts and Humanities faculty backed by concrete...

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...

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News

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

Jennifer New
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...
group of scholars looks at artwork

Working Group Directors Q&A

The Obermann Center's unique Working Groups program provides space, structure, and discretionary funding for participants from across the UI campus and beyond to explore complex issues at a moment when cross-disciplinary collaboration is crucial to address shifting domains of knowledge and a rapidly changing world. We've extended the application deadline for 2020-21 Working Groups to April 28, and...
HPG logo

Summer 2020 Humanities for the Public Good Interns Selected

The Humanities for the Public Good program welcomes its second cohort of summer interns. The interns, who earn $5,000 for their eight weeks in the field, will work with organizations in the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids corridor on specific projects that range from oral history recording and archiving to curriculum development. In addition to their time at the job site, interns will meet regularly as a...
three scholars in Obermann library

Doing History in Public: Alumni share their work beyond academe

On February 24, three University of Iowa History PhD alumni visited campus to share their current work beyond academe. All three are exemplary scholars who have earned national and campus recognition for their work. In addition to the acclaim they’ve received, what makes these alumni stand out is their work in the public sector: Karen Christianson, whose dissertation explored gender relations in a...
hands full of cash

Surveying the Effects of Political Corruption

Jennifer New
Americans may feel they are living in an era of unprecedented political corruption. Just weeks ago, President Trump pardoned eleven people, many of whose convictions included bribery, tax fraud, and the sale of a public office. In the whirl of daily headlines, it can be easy to forget that corruption is nearly as old as democracy itself, with the ancient Greeks and Romans providing many examples...
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Recent Events

Targeting the Psychological Roots, Not Branches, of Vaccine Confidence promotional image

Targeting the Psychological Roots, Not Branches, of Vaccine Confidence

Friday, April 10, 2026 3:00pm to 3:45pm
Biology Building East
Aaron Scherer examines the psychological roots of vaccine confidence and how to communicate more effectively about science.
Humanities Write-In promotional image

Humanities Write-In

Thursday, April 9, 2026 2:00pm to 4:00pm
111 Church Street

The Graduate College has joined the Graduate Student Senate and the Graduate & Professional Student Government to encourage a week-long celebration of our graduate students April 6–10, 2026.

Celebrate Graduate Student Appreciation Week with dedicated writing time and meaningful community. Join us for a focused Humanities Write-In facilitated by Grad Ambassadors, designed to offer structure, accountability, and connection for Iowa’s graduate and professional students working on any kind of...

Iowa Care Lab Distinguished Senior Scholar Lecture

Friday, March 27, 2026 3:30pm to 5:00pm
Old Capitol Museum

Lori Gruen, Wesleyan University

"Empathy’s Role in Care Ethics"

Supported by the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, The Office of the Vice President for Research, the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, the Philosophy Department, the Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies Department, the Religious Studies Department, and the Psychiatry and Early Neurobiological Development Lab.

"More than 'Not Urban': Serving Rural Communities as Places and as People" — keynote lecture by Andy Mink, Smithsonian Institute promotional image

"More than 'Not Urban': Serving Rural Communities as Places and as People" — keynote lecture by Andy Mink, Smithsonian Institute

Friday, March 27, 2026 3:00pm to 4:00pm
Iowa City Public Library

This is a keynote lecture for the 2025-2026 Obermann Symposium: "Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research."

Andy Mink, Smithsonian Institute: "More than 'Not Urban': Serving Rural Communities as Places and as People"

What are synonyms for rural? Country and small town? Rustic or backcountry? Pastoral or hick? Rural communities are an important part of American life and history, yet they are frequently seen in a deficit model defined by what they are not instead of what they...

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium promotional image

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium

Friday, March 27, 2026 (all day)
Iowa City Public Library

Directed by Brian R. Farrell, Daria Fisher Page, and Ryan T. Sakoda (UI College of Law), "Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research" will bring together scholars, community leaders from across the U.S., and professionals who work with rural populations and in rural spaces. During the symposium, attendees will be invited to collaborate in theorizing rurality, share how it impacts their work, examine how rurality is represented and celebrated, and begin to discuss challenges...

"Reimagining the Rural from Idyll to Hinterland: Exhausting Rural Childhoods” — keynote lecture by Esther Pereen, University of Amsterdam promotional image

"Reimagining the Rural from Idyll to Hinterland: Exhausting Rural Childhoods” — keynote lecture by Esther Pereen, University of Amsterdam

Thursday, March 26, 2026 6:00pm to 7:00pm
Stanley Museum of Art

This is a keynote lecture for the 2025-2026 Obermann Symposium: "Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research."

Esther Pereen, University of Amsterdam: "Reimagining the Rural from Idyll to Hinterland: Exhausting Rural Childhoods”

Across the social and cultural realms, the rural is often imagined through idyllic and pastoral genres that allow it to be conceived as a refuge from globalization. Pereen's European Research Council–funded project RURAL IMAGINATIONS, concentrating on...