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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

The Power of Programming: Sam Rebelsky

Sam Rebelsky is a professional problem-solver. That is, he’s a computer scientist. Whether he’s tackling a programming task or confronting the social and ethical problems of his discipline, he relishes breaking down complex problems, coming up with step-by-step solutions, and teaching others to do the same. A professor of computer science at Grinnell College and a Fall 2018 Obermann Fellow-in...
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Discovering Ecosystems of Graduate Studies - A slide presentation

In this short slide presentation, Obermann Center Director Teresa Mangum provides background, goals, and opportunities related to the Humanities for the Public Good program, which is funded by a generous 4-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. https://youtu.be/LFdaB0uGLn0

The Accidental Ethnographer

Tammy Nyden calls herself an accidental ethnographer. She is a scholar and mother of two, but it’s the practice of ethnography, in which one embeds herself within a community in order to study it, that best captures her current intellectual and personal passion. Her now-teenaged son was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder eight years ago, and with autism two...
Iphigenia Point Blank image of a woman's face

Iphigenia Point Blank—On stage and in the community

Two summers ago as part of the Obermann Interdisciplinary Grant program, a group of artists commandeered the Obermann attic and covered tables and walls with prints of Greek vases and statues, photos of George W. Bush and fashion models on the catwalk, a golden blanket made of foil, and film stills of abandoned life jackets. The rich array of objects and images proved to be the birthing site for a...

UI Awarded two grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation totaling $1.6 Million

One grant will bring exciting speakers to campus for a yearlong seminar on Latina/o/x identities and cultures; the other will create practice-based, cross-disciplinary opportunities for humanities graduate students interested in diverse careers. The University of Iowa (UI) Obermann Center for Advanced Studies in the Office of the Vice President for Research will host two grants totaling...
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Capturing the Lived Experiences of Latinx High Schoolers

As recipients of a Summer 2018 Interdisciplinary Research Grant, Gerta Bardhoshi (Counselor Education), Leslie Ann Locke (Educational Policy & Leadership), and Jeremy Swanston (Art & Art History) are engaged in a multi-phase project that seeks to give voice to rural Latinx high school students' lived educational experiences, engage in critical dialogue, and promote policy development in the...

Recent Events

Craft Critique Culture Graduate Conference: Black Legacies promotional image

Craft Critique Culture Graduate Conference: Black Legacies

Thursday, April 4, 2024 12:00pm

On April 4–6, 2024, English graduate students are hosting the 23rd annual Craft Critique Culture interdisciplinary graduate conference on the University of Iowa campus. This year’s conference addresses themes of “Black Legacies.” For this conference, “Black Legacies” is, first, a recognition and continued contribution to the history of Black Studies programs in colleges and universities, which emerged in the 1960s and ’70s. “Black Legacies” is also a way to honor and celebrate the power of...

2024 Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day promotional image

2024 Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day

Saturday, March 30, 2024 9:00am to 4:30pm
MacLean Hall

The daylong program includes workshops, interactive talks, math related games and panels of professionals with math-related jobs. Sonia Kovalevsky Day is an opportunity for high school female students to engage in a day of networking, mentoring, and fun! There is no cost to attend the event, and participants have opportunities to meet and talk with university professors and students. 

Fact Sheet

Where: MacLean Hall at the University of Iowa.
When: Saturday, March 30, 2024
Who: High-school...

What She Said — A Workshop on Empowering Women’s Voices in Celebration of Women’s History Month promotional image

What She Said — A Workshop on Empowering Women’s Voices in Celebration of Women’s History Month

Saturday, March 30, 2024 9:00am to 12:00pm

Our voices are an important indicator of who we are. Female-presenting speakers often learn self-undermining speaking habits from the people and society around them. How does the voice contribute to our sense of presence and how others perceive us? Tone, inflection, pace, and volume are some of the vocal elements that provide clues for the listener as to what we think and feel.

In this workshop, UI Theatre Arts professor Mary Mayo will invite you to develop a greater awareness of your voice and...

Stephen Best: “Baldwin's Inarticulacy”

Friday, March 29, 2024 3:30pm to 5:00pm
English-Philosophy Building

The Department of English and Obermann Center are hosting Stephen Best on Friday, March 29 at 3:30 p.m. in 304 EPB (Gerber). UI PhD candidate Sarah Frank will introduce Professor Best and UI Professor Deborah Whaley will serve as respondent.

Stephen Best (Berkeley) is Rachael Anderson Stageberg Chair in English and Director of the Townsend Center for the Humanities. One of the most important scholars of his generation, Professor Best has published two acclaimed monographs: "The Fugitive's...

New Histories for Reproductive Justice: Authors in Conversation promotional image

New Histories for Reproductive Justice: Authors in Conversation

Thursday, March 28, 2024 7:00pm
Prairie Lights Books

Professors Natalie Lira, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; and Angela Hume, University of California, Berkeley, will be in conversation with each other about their recent books on the topics of abortion and the history of sterilization. Their work is deeply informed by and grounded in a reproductive justice framework.

Hosted by the Reproductive Justice Obermann Working Group

Global Visiting Scholar Presentation: Policy Engagement & Development for Women’s Reproductive Health in India promotional image

Global Visiting Scholar Presentation: Policy Engagement & Development for Women’s Reproductive Health in India

Tuesday, March 26, 2024 1:30pm to 2:20pm
College of Public Health Building

Sivakami is a Professor at the Center for Health and Social Sciences, School of Health Systems Studies (SHSS), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. She was also the Chairperson of the Centre for Health and Social Sciences, one of the four centers in SHSS, between June 2015 to June 2021. Sivakami's broad research area includes Demography, Gender and Health. Her specific research areas of interest include Sexual and Reproductive Health including Menarche and Menstrual Hygiene...