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

Save the date! March 8 Career Diversity in the Humanities Working Symposium

SAVE THE DATE! Career Diversity in the Humanities: An Obermann Humanities for the Public Good Working Symposium March 8 from 9–5 at the 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...
Robert Wise

Nathan Platte's Fascination with the Sounds of an Unassuming Director

Robert Wise doesn’t make sense the same way some directors and their work do. He’s not labyrinthine like Hitchcock or surreal like Lynch. In fact, it’s hard to imagine that some of his films were created by the same person. It is this eclecticism that attracted musicologist Nathan Platte, a faculty member in the School of Music and a Fall 2018 Obermann Fellow-in-Residence, to write a book about...

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...

Recent Events

Obermann Arts & Humanities Symposium Info Session promotional image

Obermann Arts & Humanities Symposium Info Session

Thursday, September 22, 2022 8:30am to 9:30am
Virtual

The UI Obermann Center for Advanced Studies is reimagining its longtime Humanities Symposium as an Arts & Humanities Symposium. We want to lighten the planning and organizational work for symposia directors so that they can focus on the inspiring work of connecting with one another, sharing scholarly and creative discoveries, and experimenting with creative, interactive approaches to artistic and humanistic research. We hope that streamlined planning will open space for imaginative cross...

The Impact of Schools on Mental Health: An Obermann Conversation promotional image

The Impact of Schools on Mental Health: An Obermann Conversation

Wednesday, September 21, 2022 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Virtual

Schools play a crucial role in young people's mental health, something that became extremely clear during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the CDC, in 2021, 37% of high school students reported they experienced poor mental health, and 44% reported they persistently felt sad or hopeless during the past year. Schools provide connectedness to mentors, friends, and services. At the same time, they can also be sites of difficulty in the form of bullying or stress from learning obstacles. 

In this...

Seeding Excellence: OVPR Community Engaged Scholars Mini-Design Workshop

Friday, September 16, 2022 1:00pm to 3:00pm
111 Church Street

On Friday, Sept. 16 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Obermann Center (111 Church St.), the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and the Office of Community Engagement will hold a mini-design workshop for faculty members who plan to apply for a Seeding Excellence: OVPR Community Engaged Scholars grant. Free and open to all. Register here.

About the Seeding Excellence Initiative – OVPR Community Engaged Scholars (AHSS)

SEI, a two-year initiative, aims to sustain the continued growth of the campus...

Info Session for Summer '23 Humanities Without Walls Predoctoral Career Diversity Workshop promotional image

Info Session for Summer '23 Humanities Without Walls Predoctoral Career Diversity Workshop

Friday, September 16, 2022 8:30am to 9:30am
Virtual

Launched in 2015 as an initiative of the Humanities Without Walls (HWW) consortium, this annual workshop welcomes 30 participants each summer from higher education institutions across the United States. HWW Summer Workshop Fellows work in a variety of academic disciplines. They are scholars and practitioners who bring experience in community building, museum curation, filmmaking, radio programming, social media, project management, research, writing, and teaching. They are invested in issues of...

Fall Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop (2022–23) promotional image

Fall Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop (2022–23)

Thursday, September 15, 2022 5:00pm

Co-sponsored by the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and the Office of the Vice President for Research, Books 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 turn promising manuscripts into important, field-changing, published books.

Application Deadline: Obermann Fellows-in-Residence (Spring 2023) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Fellows-in-Residence (Spring 2023)

Tuesday, September 13, 2022 5:00pm

Obermann Center Fellows-in-Residence fully devote themselves to projects within an interdisciplinary community. The program supports artists, researchers, and scholars during periods when focus and feedback are crucial. The program is rooted in our mission: to support the work of individual scholars, while also providing Fellows with the opportunity to enrich an individual, discipline-specific project through interdisciplinary exchanges with a lively intellectual community of Fellows.

Each year...