Upcoming Events

There are currently no events to display.

View more events

Spacer

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

Christopher Newfield

Colliding Art Forms and Documenting Refugees: The Iphigenia Project

“We don’t collaborate, we collide!” declares Irina Patkanian as she sits down for a conversation with fellow artists Lisa Schlesinger and Marion Schoevaert to discuss their Iphigenia Project and its culminating piece, Iphigenia at Lesvos: Story of a Refugee. The project has been unfolding for several years and reflects not only current world events, but the three women’s process-oriented working...

Colored Conventions Project - Lecture & Workshop with Gabrielle Foreman

Gabrielle Foreman Visit, November 5-7, 2017 — As part of Digital Bridges for Humanistic Inquiry: A Grinnell College/University of Iowa Partnership, a multi-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support collaborative practices in the humanities, digital humanist Gabrielle Foreman will visit the University of Iowa and give a public lecture and a digital humanities workshop....

Introducing Our Fall 2017 Fellows

Blaine Greteman, English, CLAS Greteman is at work on a book, Networking English Print, which draws from his digital humanities project, Shakeosphere: Mapping Early Modern Social Networks. After mining the publication history of nearly every book printed in English before 1800, Greteman and his collaborators mapped the connections between printers, authors, publishers, and booksellers. By...

Incarcerate. Educate. Integrate. Prisoner access to education focus of September conference and new speaker series

In a recent meeting between prospective students and University of Iowa faculty, questions came up that sounded pretty routine: “Am I going to get credit for this?” “Will there be homework?” “What’s the time commitment?” These weren’t incoming freshman, however, but a group of men currently incarcerated at the Iowa Medical & Classification Center (“Oakdale”) in Coralville, IA. They were...

2018-19 Program Dates and Application Deadlines

FALL APPLICATION DEADLINES Obermann Center Fellows-in-Residence, Spring 2018 Application deadline: Sept. 12, 2017 The Obermann Fellows-in-Residence 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...
Jessica Pleyel ironing

Jessica Pleyel: Mending through Art

Wax guns, duck decoys, and nail polish. These are some of the items in artist Jessica Pleyel’s community engagement toolkit. The Obermann Graduate Institute alumna is currently bringing audiences together to consider gun violence against women, especially by domestic partners. Her exhibition, To(get)her: Meeting/Melting/Mending, had a month-long run at the Des Moines Social Club this spring, and...

Recent Events

Exhibition Spotlight: DESIGNED TO WIN Virtual Exhibit Tour and Q&A promotional image

Exhibition Spotlight: DESIGNED TO WIN Virtual Exhibit Tour and Q&A

Monday, February 15, 2021 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Virtual
About the event:

Join the Pentacrest Museums for an Exhibition Spotlight as we debut our latest virtual exhibit with the help of special guest and collector, J. Patrick White. Designed to Win: An Examination of Presidential Political Buttons features the private collection of J. Patrick White who brings a wealth of knowledge on American presidents and their campaigns through these small-but-mighty buttons designed to win the presidency of the United States. We invite you to an exhibit...

Humanities Without Walls Info Session promotional image

Humanities Without Walls Info Session

Monday, February 15, 2021 8:30am to 9:30am
Virtual

The Obermann Center for Advanced Studies is proud to be a member of the Andrew W. Mellon–funded Humanities Without Walls (HWW) consortium, which fosters collaborative research and explores the contributions of humanities in the workplace.

HWW has provided the Obermann Center funding to help UI faculty prepare proposals for HWW seed grant applications (due in November 2021). To learn more about the seed grants and how to apply for them, we welcome you to attend one of our upcoming Zoom...

Mellon Sawyer Seminar Information Session (#2) promotional image

Mellon Sawyer Seminar Information Session (#2)

Friday, February 12, 2021 8:30am to 9:30am
Virtual

Join us for this virtual information session if you're interested in submitting an application to direct a 2022–23 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded Sawyer Seminar.

Zoom link: https://uiowa.zoom.us/j/97541317741?pwd=TDVhUzQrYVYzUklNcnVtOWdLSXdDdz09

Free and open to all.

About Sawyer Seminars:

The Mellon Foundation's Sawyer Seminars were established in 1994 to provide support for comparative research on the historical and cultural sources of contemporary developments.  The seminars, named in...

Mellon Sawyer Seminar Information Session promotional image

Mellon Sawyer Seminar Information Session

Tuesday, February 9, 2021 8:30am to 9:30am
Virtual

Join us for this virtual information session if you're interested in submitting an application to direct a 2022–23 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded Sawyer Seminar.

Zoom link: https://uiowa.zoom.us/j/97541317741?pwd=TDVhUzQrYVYzUklNcnVtOWdLSXdDdz09

Free and open to all.

About Sawyer Seminars:

The Mellon Foundation's Sawyer Seminars were established in 1994 to provide support for comparative research on the historical and cultural sources of contemporary developments.  The seminars, named in...

I Spy: How to Read a Grant Application — An Obermann GET IT DONE! Lunchtime Workshop promotional image

I Spy: How to Read a Grant Application — An Obermann GET IT DONE! Lunchtime Workshop

Wednesday, February 3, 2021 12:30pm to 1:30pm
Virtual

The first step to secure a grant is to learn to be a careful close reader of calls for proposals. What key terms and concepts should you seek? How does the grant language match the funder’s mission? How can you actively demonstrate that your project will help funders achieve their goals? We’ve asked Kristi Fitzpatrick—Director of the Grant Support Office in the UI College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and one of the campus’ sharpest readers and writers of grants—to share her advice.

Free and open...

Podcasting with Purpose: Annie Galvin promotional image

Podcasting with Purpose: Annie Galvin

Thursday, January 28, 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...