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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

All in the Mix: Erica Damman's Environmental Games

Remove the letter A from Scrabble and things get tricky pretty quickly. Likewise, remove apis melliferia, or the honeybee, from the world’s ecosystems and things start to fall apart. Almonds and apples, coffee and avocados—all become, if not extinct, then exceptionally rarer without bees to pollinate them. Industries that employ thousands of people are compromised. The food that sustains certain...

Summer Brings Russell Scholars, a pair of education projects, two arts projects, and digital collaborations to the Obermann Center

The Obermann Center will host multiple groups this summer, working on projects ranging from an edited anthology to a "film opera." The Philosophy of Physical Atomism is the focus of this year's Obermann Summer Seminar. These lectures, given by Bertrand Russell in the early months of 1918, were published in pairs in four issues...

Talking “Prophylactic Chats” with Fellow-in-Residence Edward Cohn

It's 1975, Lithuania. You receive a letter in the mail—brief, and on KGB letterhead. "You are invited to a friendly chat at our headquarters," it says. "Next Monday, 10 a.m." Gulp. These "chats"—frequent occurrences in Khrushchev-era Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia—are the current fascination of Obermann Fellow-in-Residence Edward Cohn. A professor of history at Grinnell College, Dr. Cohn...

Humanities on the Hill 2017—with the National Humanities Alliance

Just as news was breaking that the proposed federal budget could zero out the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, I joined representatives from nearly 200 colleges and universities in Washington, D.C. for the 2017 National Humanities Alliance Advocacy Day. As the current secretary of the NHA Board of Directors, I know firsthand what...

The Making of "Hot Tamale Louie": Fantastical immigrant’s tale inspires multi-genre production

Sometime between chemo and radiation, John Rapson was struck by inspiration. It came in the form of a New Yorker article. The long piece, “Citizen Khan” by Kathryn Schulz, is as meandering and rich as its subject: Zarif Khan. After reading the article last June, Rapson, a jazz professor in the School of Music, immediately knew that he’d found the subject for a new piece. Not only would it include...

Sara Goldrick-Rab's Feb. 13 college affordability talks available online

On February 13, 2017, Sara Goldrick-Rab, Professor of Higher Education Policy & Sociology at Temple University, visited the UI campus to discuss the crisis of college affordability and student loan debt. Both of her public lectures are now available online. Listen to Sara Goldrick-Rab's Inequality Seminar talk, “Making College Affordable: Adventures in Scholar-Activism.” Watch her lecture,...

Recent Events

Sports, Power, and Resistance: Legacies and Futures — Obermann Arts & Humanities Symposium promotional image

Sports, Power, and Resistance: Legacies and Futures — Obermann Arts & Humanities Symposium

Thursday, September 21 to Saturday, September 23, 2023 (all day)

How can the history of activism in sports help us understand the dynamics shaping conflicts today? How might labor relations in sport be imagined differently? How does the structure of sporting entertainment provide opportunities and obstacles to activism, and how can activists navigate these challenges?

As fans flock to sports arenas to cheer for their favorite teams, these spaces are simultaneously important societal battlegrounds. From acts of political protest by players to legislative...

Black Online Culture, Blackfishing, and Digital Blackface and Welcoming Reception for Dr. André Brock, an Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor

Wednesday, September 20, 2023 6:00pm to 8:00pm
Iowa City Public Library

Please join us in welcoming Dr. André Brock with a receiption at the Iowa City Public Library the day before his talk on campus. There will be a talk by Dr. Brock at 6 p.m., followed by a reception at the Library at 7 p.m. Food & beverages will be provided: light appetizers, dessert, nonalcoholic beverages.

André L. Brock is  an associate professor at the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech. He is an interdisciplinary scholar with an MA in English and Rhetoric from...

Creative Matters: Attacca Quartet and Caroline Shaw in Conversation with Elizabeth Oakes promotional image

Creative Matters: Attacca Quartet and Caroline Shaw in Conversation with Elizabeth Oakes

Tuesday, September 19, 2023 6:00pm to 7:00pm
Voxman Music Building

Join us in Voxman Recital Hall for an intimate and engaging conversation with the Grammy-award winning Attacca Quartet and Caroline Shaw, youngest-ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Elizabeth Oakes, professor of instruction in chamber music in the UI School of Music, will moderate the talk. The event is free and open to the public.

The members of the acclaimed Attacca Quartet—described by The New York Times as “exuberant, funky, and … exactingly nuanced”—are passionate advocates...

Creating Engaging Event Communications Plans — An Obermann Get It Done Workshop promotional image

Creating Engaging Event Communications Plans — An Obermann Get It Done Workshop

Tuesday, September 19, 2023 12:00pm to 1:00pm
111 Church Street

Are you planning academic events—symposiums, conferences, or public lectures—and don’t know where to start with your communications strategy? Where are the best places to publicize your event around the UI campus and Iowa City? What tools should you use? Join Lauren Cox (Assistant Director, Obermann Center for Advanced Studies) and Jenna Hammerich (Communications Specialist, Obermann Center for Advanced Studies) for an in-person Get It Done Workshop to learn about strategic communications for...

Humanities in Medicine: Dr. Liana Meffert promotional image

Humanities in Medicine: Dr. Liana Meffert

Monday, September 18, 2023 6:00pm to 7:00pm
Medical Education Research Facility

Reception will follow. Event is free and open to the public, but please register here

Application Deadline: Obermann Faculty Fellows (Spring 2024) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Faculty Fellows (Spring 2024)

Tuesday, September 12, 2023 5:00pm

Obermann Center Faculty Fellows (formerly 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...