Upcoming Events

Wide Lens: LISTENING promotional image

Wide Lens: LISTENING

Thursday, May 8, 2025 5:30pm
Voxman Music Building
In a world full of noise, we often try listening to something: conversations with colleagues and family, music in our headphones, videos blasting from our smartphones. We hear all these things daily, but what does it mean to truly listen? In what sense do devices also listen to us? What is the role of silence in listening? How has listening changed over time? Can political tensions be solved through “listening”? How is listening both an art and a science? This Wide Lens event brings together...
View more events

Spacer

Upcoming Application Deadlines

Upcoming Application Deadlines

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Fall 2025) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Fall 2025)

Saturday, February 15, 2025 11:59pm
The UI Obermann Center for Advanced studies is currently accepting applications for its new International Fellowships Program, which 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 with...
Spring Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop promotional image

Spring Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop

Wednesday, February 19, 2025 5:00pm
Co-sponsored by the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and the Office of the Vice President for Research, Book Ends—Obermann/OVPR 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 in turning promising manuscripts into important, field-changing, published books.
Application Deadline: Obermann End-of-Year Writing Retreat promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann End-of-Year Writing Retreat

Friday, March 14, 2025 5:00pm
Have you been waiting all school year to make serious progress on your book manuscript, article, or grant application? Jump-start your summer writing project at the Obermann End-of-Year Writing Retreat May 12–16, 2025! Fifteen participants will enjoy a week of quiet productivity apart from the distractions of campus at the beautiful North Ridge Pavilion in Coralville. Daily catered lunches will provide an opportunity for exchange and discussion with other writers across campus. Each day will...
Application Deadline: Obermann Working Groups (2025–26) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Working Groups (2025–26)

Wednesday, April 9, 2025 5:00pm
Obermann Center Working Groups provide space, structure, and discretionary funding ($500 per year for 3 years) 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 explore new work and to share their own research, to organize a symposium, and to develop grant proposals. This program allows participants from across the campus and beyond to explore complex issues at a...
Fall Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop promotional image

Fall Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop

Wednesday, September 24, 2025 5:00pm
Co-sponsored by the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and the Office of the Vice President for Research, Book Ends—Obermann/OVPR 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 in turning promising manuscripts into important, field-changing, published books. Book Ends brings together a panel of senior scholars for a candid, constructive three...

News

A Symposium Bears Fruit: New book and an inter-institutional grant the latest results of The Latino Midwest

Convening the right group of people at the right time can create not just a ripple effect but a tidal wave of creative, collaborative products. Claire Fox (English and Spanish & Portuguese, CLAS) has seen this firsthand. Since she co-directed The Latino Midwest, the 2012–13 Obermann Humanities Symposium, a new University of Iowa program has come into being, a related textbook is soon to be...

The Phenomena of Attention: Shaun Vecera's Current Study of Distracted Driving

The stoplight has just turned red. Your cell phone is sitting on the seat next to you, and it vibrated a few blocks back. Should you pick it up and check it? Could this be considered distracted driving, even though the car isn’t moving? Without a doubt, says Shaun Vecera (Psychological & Brain Sciences, CLAS), a current Obermann Fellow-in-Residence who is studying individuals prone to risky...

Anne Fausto-Sterling to Present at Darwin Days

This Friday and Saturday (March 3 and 4), feminist biologist Professor Anne Fausto-Sterling will visit the University of Iowa to participate in Iowa City's celebration of Darwin Day. Fausto-Sterling will give two talks, a professional talk about her current research on gender and development on Friday at 3 pm in the Kollros Auditorium (Biology Building East) and a public lecture on gender, science...

Announcing "1984 in 2017: A Symposium"

This April, Loren Glass (English, CLAS; Center for the Book) and the UI Center for Human Rights will present an interdisciplinary public symposium, 1984 in 2017. The all-day event will explore correlations between George Orwell's dystopian—and newly bestselling—novel 1984 and current events, addressing such questions as, What does it mean to live in a world where dystopian fiction resembles...

Civic Media: When Coding, Social Justice, and Creativity Meet

Lecture and workshop from Catherine D’Ignazio What happens when coding, creativity, and commitment to social justice come together? One answer is Catherine D’Ignazio. A researcher, designer, and software developer, D’Ignazio is Assistant Professor of Civic Media and Data Visualization in the Journalism Department at Emerson College. She is also a Principal Investigator at the Emerson Engagement...

Digital Storytelling at Heart of Spring Digital Bridges Lineup

Digital Bridges for Humanistic Inquiry: A Grinnell College/University of Iowa Partnership is at a midway point. Generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the grant offers faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students at Grinnell College and The University of Iowa opportunities to experiment with collaborative practices in the humanities from 2015 through 2018. Virtual...

Recent Events

Reading and Re-Translation - an international colloquium promotional image

Reading and Re-Translation - an international colloquium

Thursday, March 28 to Saturday, March 30, 2019 (all day)
University Capitol Centre
Reading and Re-translation" is an international and interdisciplinary colloquium dedicated to the theorization and practice of reading. With funding from an International Programs Major Projects Award, organizers and speakers from around the globe will focus on the current state of research on reading and re-translation and will generate scholarly and creative exchanges between colleagues in diverse fields in the arts, sciences, literatures, and humanities. The conference opens with a special...
The Future of US Politics: Looking Ahead to 2020 promotional image

The Future of US Politics: Looking Ahead to 2020

Wednesday, March 27, 2019 7:00pm to 9:00pm
The Englert
Join us for a thoughtful discussion of politics in the United States and the future of the Democratic and Republican parties from left, right and analytical perspectives. Featuring Melissa Ryan of Ctrl Alt-Right Delete, Chris Buskirk of American Greatness, and Tamara Keith of NPR.
 Local Disabilities Initiatives: An Obermann Conversation promotional image

Local Disabilities Initiatives: An Obermann Conversation

Wednesday, March 27, 2019 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Iowa City Public Library
In this Obermann Conversation, we’ll hear from activists representing various organizations about current projects that support, amplify, and advocate for people with disabilities. Tammy Nyden gives an overview of the work of the Johnson County Children’s Colation, a project of our local NAMI; Michael Hoenig shares the disability training offered to UI health sciences students; Andrew Tubbs describes the work of Combined Efforts’ multi-arts projects; Sujit Singh will talk about a local...
Commitment to Internationalization Lecture Series promotional image

Commitment to Internationalization Lecture Series

Monday, March 11, 2019 4:30pm
University Capitol Centre
Philip Altbach is the fifth speaker in the Commitment to Internationalization lecture series. His talk, "The Peril and Promise of Internationalization in the Era of Trump, Brexit, and Global Competition," continues the conversation about the UI's vision and strategic themes for campus internationalization. RSVP online. Philip G. Altbach is Research Professor and Founding Director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College, where from 1994 to 2015 he was the Monan...
National Experiments in Career Diversity: A Day-long Obermann Working Symposium promotional image

National Experiments in Career Diversity: A Day-long Obermann Working Symposium

Friday, March 8, 2019 (all day)
Iowa City Public Library
Across the country, leaders of PhD programs in the humanities face a conundrum. How can a department honor the subjects, methods, and practices of their disciplines while also preparing graduates for diverse careers? To inspire our thinking, we have invited directors of some of the most imaginative programs across the country for an Obermann Working Symposium as part of the Andrew W. Mellon–funded Humanities for the Public Good initiative. The daylong program will be held Friday, March 8 at the...
Facilitate a Better Gathering — a GET IT DONE! lunchtime workshop promotional image

Facilitate a Better Gathering — a GET IT DONE! lunchtime workshop

Friday, March 1, 2019 12:00pm to 1:00pm
111 Church Street
How can you break out of the meeting mold of working diligently through an agenda? How can a class start to feel more like a community? How can we invite everyone to participate? Borrowing from their readings in books that focus on creating community change, such as In the Heart of Democracy by Parker Palmer and Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown, several members of the Obermann Working Group "Modes and Models of Facilitation" will demonstrate several tools and methods for creating more...