Upcoming Events

Locating Reproductive Justice: Global & Regional Perspectives — 2024–25 Obermann Arts & Humanities Symposium promotional image

Locating Reproductive Justice: Global & Regional Perspectives — 2024–25 Obermann Arts & Humanities Symposium

Thursday, March 27 to Friday, March 28, 2025 (all day)
As calls for transnational solidarity among reproductive justice movements emerge, communities are asking how reproductive liberation is tethered to various social movements. Directed by Lina-Maria Murillo (Gender, Women's, & Sexuality Studies and History) and Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz (Communication Studies and Gender, Women's, & Sexuality Studies), this symposium brings together scholars and artists with local, regional, and global perspectives to bear on the pursuit of reproductive justice as we...
Writing for The Conversation: Informational Lunch for Grad Students and Postdocs promotional image

Writing for The Conversation: Informational Lunch for Grad Students and Postdocs

Friday, April 11, 2025 12:00pm to 1:30pm
111 Church Street
Join the Office of the Vice President for Research, the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, and the Graduate College for lunch and an introduction to pitching your research to The Conversation US with Kristy Nabhan-Warren, Associate Vice President for Research.  The Conversation is an independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of academic experts for the public good. With a monthly readership of 20 million, The Conversation expertly shares a scholar’s expertise far...
Graduate Student Session with Mark Simpson-Vos, Obermann Editor-in-Residence promotional image

Graduate Student Session with Mark Simpson-Vos, Obermann Editor-in-Residence

Thursday, April 17, 2025 10:00am to 11:00am
111 Church Street
This interactive talk for PhD and MFA students in the writing disciplines will outline the publishing process for first books. The session will guide graduate students through the steps of the academic publishing process, with a focus on demystifying the journey from dissertation/thesis to manuscript to published book. Key topics will include identifying the right academic publisher, understanding peer review, negotiating contracts, and building a strong proposal. Led by Mark Simpson-Vos, Senior...
"Beyond Crisis: Restoring the Creative Partnership between Authors and Publishers" - Lecture by Mark Simpson-Vos promotional image

"Beyond Crisis: Restoring the Creative Partnership between Authors and Publishers" - Lecture by Mark Simpson-Vos

Thursday, April 17, 2025 3:30pm to 4:30pm
111 Church Street
At this public lecture, Mark Simpson-Vos — Senior Executive Editor at University of North Carolina Press — will discuss the way commentators have since the 1970s routinely trotted out the idea that scholarly publishing is in crisis, and how the stance of publishers in particular has been to shrug off such ideas. In this moment, however, it is impossible to ignore the deep strains within the scholarly publishing ecosystem, amidst increasingly turbulent times for American higher education. Lament...
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Upcoming Application Deadlines

Upcoming Application Deadlines

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

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...

Successfully Aging in Place: Obermann Conversation focuses on keeping older residents in neighborhoods

Many of us hope to age in our own homes, but looking ahead, we wonder about everyday practicalities. What happens when we can no longer rake our leaves or change a light bulb in a hard-to-reach spot? The next Obermann Conversation features UI Aging Studies program director Mercedes Bern-Klug, communications consultant Susan Shullaw, and Tippie College of Business emeritus faculty member Nancy...

Student Loan Debt Topic of February Visit

On Monday, February 13, at 7:00 p.m. at the Iowa City Public Library, Sara Goldrick-Rab, Professor of Higher Education Policy & Sociology at Temple University, will give a public lecture on the crisis of college affordability and student loan debt. She will offer solutions for fixing the U.S. financial aid system to make higher education accessible to all, drawing on research published in her...

Snapshot of German Iowa in the Global Midwest Symposium

German Iowa and the Global Midwest was a three-day symposium (Oct. 6-8, 2016) that explored Iowa's multicultural heritage. Part of a larger series of linked events, the 2016 Obermann Humanities Symposium was a tremendous success, gaining considerable local, statewide, and even national attention. Highlights Frank Trommler, an Ida Beam speaker, gave two public talks. The first, in the public...

2017 Obermann Graduate Institute Fellows Announced

The 2017 Obermann Graduate Institute on Engagement and the Academy will meet from January 9-13, 2017. The group of 16 students were selected from a competitive pool representing five colleges and in disciplines ranging from Library and Information Science to Community and Behavioral Health. Now in its eleventh year, the Graduate Institute offers a competitively selected group of UI graduate...

Engaged Filmmaking - Documentary Course Reflects Graduate Institute's Teachings

Nonfiction filmmaking is inherently collaborative. Anna Swanson [pictured in black shirt working with a student] asked the students in her "Publicly Engaged Documentary" course both to question and commit to the partnerships that such filmmaking necessitates. Go beyond getting a project done or thinking toward job skills, she recommended; instead, consider being an artist-advocate or a scholar...

Recent Events

Podcasting with Purpose: Rebecca Nagle promotional image

Podcasting with Purpose: Rebecca Nagle

Thursday, April 1, 2021 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Virtual
Calling all podcasters, podcast enthusiasts, and podcast newbies! Learn from expert podcasters about the craft of podcasting with purpose, from the nuts and bolts of recording and editing audio to the intellectual and creative labor of audio storytelling. As part of our goal to prepare graduate students for a wide range of careers serving the public good, Humanities for the Public Good is exploring new and innovative methods of interpretation, storytelling, and meaning-making. The Podcasting...
The Writing-Enriched Curriculum: A discussion with Pamela Flash promotional image

The Writing-Enriched Curriculum: A discussion with Pamela Flash

Thursday, April 1, 2021 2:30pm
Virtual
In this discussion, Pamela Flash (University of Minnesota) will introduce the Writing-Enriched Curriculum (WEC) model and will think with local stakeholders about affordances and challenges associated with its potential implementation at the University of Iowa. WEC offers a departmental model designed to (1) support the curricular integration of relevant modes of writing and writing instruction and (2) to increase the rate at which student writing meets locally-generated faculty expectations...
Riding with Pride: How the Sport of Rodeo Became Gay Pride for LGBTQ Athletes, Nicholas (Nick) Villanueva, Tuest speaker promotional image

Riding with Pride: How the Sport of Rodeo Became Gay Pride for LGBTQ Athletes, Nicholas (Nick) Villanueva, Tuest speaker

Friday, March 26, 2021 4:00pm
Virtual
In Reno, Nevada, a group of cowboys led by Phil Ragsdale organized an event known as the Reno Gay Rodeo in 1976. In the 1970s, LGBTQ communities nationwide operated through an “imperial court system,” whereby local communities elected people to a “court” that organized fundraising efforts for various charitable causes. These fundraisers were creative ways to get involved and connect with mainstream society, which had constructed divisive walls separating the LGBTQ community. In 1975, Ragsdale, a...
Performing Latina/o/x Futurity (Sawyer Seminar Closing Conference) promotional image

Performing Latina/o/x Futurity (Sawyer Seminar Closing Conference)

Friday, March 26 10:00am to Saturday, March 27, 2021 3:00pm
Virtual
When COVID-19 interrupted the late spring events and culmination of the yearlong Mellon Sawyer Seminar Imagining Latinidades: Articulations of National Belonging, we didn't know that the events would eventually end up online and across institutions. In 2019-20, seminar co-directors Darrel Wanzer-Serrano, Ariana Ruiz, and Rene Rocha worked across disciplines to organize six symposia, a film series, and a podcast. With Wanzer-Serrano now in the Communications Department at the University of Texas...
STEM and Race: Can We Talk?  promotional image

STEM and Race: Can We Talk?

Saturday, March 20, 2021 1:00pm to 4:15pm
Virtual
Can We Talk? "Can We Talk?" explores the issue of ‘social belonging’ in the context of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) and the effect it has on the lives of underrepresented people of color (UR-POC) who are pursuing an education or career in STEM, or who have decided to leave because of an overwhelming feeling of not belonging. The film has screened at venues across the U.S., at scientific conferences, colleges and universities, federal agencies, and for non-profit organizations...
Native Lands: Belonging and Reclaiming — An Obermann Conversation promotional image

Native Lands: Belonging and Reclaiming — An Obermann Conversation

Wednesday, March 10, 2021 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Virtual
Shelley Buffalo and Carrie Schuettpelz share their experiences as indigenous women who have thought hard about issues of belonging. Together, they'll consider what it means to belong to a Native American tribe, in terms of relationship to the land, the notorious blood quantum system for "measuring" someone's right to membership, and Indian cards. As people who have traveled far from home, living across the U.S. and abroad, they'll wonder together about how far and how long one can wander from...