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Upcoming Application Deadlines

Upcoming Application Deadlines

Application Deadline: Summer 2026 Obermann Writing Collective promotional image

Application Deadline: Summer 2026 Obermann Writing Collective

Friday, May 22, 2026 5:00pm
111 Church Street

This program offers accountability to artists, scholars, and researchers working on any kind of writing project (articles, essays, fellowship or grant applications, dissertations, book projects, edited volumes, etc.) who want dedicated time, a cozy space, and a community for the practice of writing.Each group meets once a week for 1.5 hours. Weekly writing sessions include brief check-ins, goal setting, and sustained writing time. All groups are open to everyone in the University of Iowa...

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

Artistic director Michael Rohd to discuss cultivating community-centered arts April 5

Effective collaboration starts with something very simple: listening. Michael Rohd, Artistic Director of the Center for Performance and Civic Practice and the Sojourn Theatre, will speak about his experiences collaborating with arts councils, service organizations, artists, community agencies, and local governments around the country to make space and context for meaningful, arts-based partnership...

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...

Recent Events

Conflict and Collaboration: Trauma-Informed Responses to Teaching Challenges promotional image

Conflict and Collaboration: Trauma-Informed Responses to Teaching Challenges

Friday, January 26, 2024 1:00pm to 2:30pm
Virtual

Bridget McCarthy from the Association of Mental Health Coordinators (AMHC) will give a presentation, which will be followed by a Q&A regarding what trauma-informed support in the classroom looks like and how to implement it in our own work. While the presentation will be geared towards the teaching of performance, anyone responsible for students in a classroom can benefit from this knowledge.

Bridget McCarthy is an artist, advocate, and a mental health coordinator for theater, TV and Film. She...

Opera Studies Forum Lecture with Anna Barker promotional image

Opera Studies Forum Lecture with Anna Barker

Wednesday, January 24, 2024 5:30pm to 6:30pm
University Capitol Centre

Dr. Anna Barker will give a lecture on the opera Carmen, which will be streamed in HD in cinemas on Saturday, Jan. 27.

Anna Barker received her PhD in Comparative Literature in 2002 with a dissertation in translation studies. At the University of Iowa, she has taught courses in the English Department, in Comparative Literature, in Russian Literature, and in the Honors Program. Her areas of interest include 19th-century Russian and European literature, Russian cultural history, 19th century...

Out of the Archive Film Series: Oscar Micheaux's 'Body and Soul' with Live Musical Accompaniment promotional image

Out of the Archive Film Series: Oscar Micheaux's 'Body and Soul' with Live Musical Accompaniment

Thursday, January 18, 2024 6:15pm to 9:30pm
FilmScene (Chauncey)

Please join us at FilmScene for the continuation of "Out of the Archive: Envisioning Blackness," a monthly screening and discussion series that celebrates the vibrant  tradition of Black cinema by featuring rarely screened, newly restored, and archivally-engaged films. Tickets are pay-what-you-can (with students, in particular, encouraged to pick $0). Join us before each screening for a free dinner reception catered by local restaurants, and stay after each film for post-screening conversations...

Canceled
Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing, Session II: Working with Graduate Students promotional image

Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing, Session II: Working with Graduate Students

Wednesday, January 10, 2024 2:00pm to 4:00pm
Virtual

Teaching Data Visualization and Communication: Do you struggle to teach your students how to best graph and visualize their data and then present their data? Join us for a one-hour workshop focused on helping students grasp principles of graphic design, data visualization (graphing and figure preparation), and effective slides for polished, persuasive presentations. After attending this workshop, you will have a clear set of expectations to share with your students on what makes for effective...

Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing I: Making Writing Assignments Creative Across the Disciplines promotional image

Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing I: Making Writing Assignments Creative Across the Disciplines

Wednesday, January 10, 2024 10:00am to 12:00pm
Virtual

Tired of the "research paper" assignment? Bored reading reflection papers? Interested in using writing to promote student learning but not sure how to make it fun? Join us for a lively discussion of how to make writing assignments more creative and engaging. See examples of innovative assignments from instructors across campus, hear from a panel of faculty who have redesigned their approaches, and workshop ideas to use in your own courses.

This is the first of two sessions offered by the Instit...

Out of the Archive: Sara Gómez's De cierta manera (One Way or Another) Film Screening promotional image

Out of the Archive: Sara Gómez's De cierta manera (One Way or Another) Film Screening

Tuesday, December 5, 2023 6:15pm
FilmScene (Chauncey)

Please join us at FilmScene this fall for a monthly screening and discussion series, Out of the Archive: Envisioning Blackness. A continuation of conversations begun last spring in the inaugural Out of the Archive program, the series showcases the vibrant, multifaceted tradition of Black cinema by presenting rarely screened and/or recently restored films. Tickets are pay-what-you-can (with students, in particular, encouraged to pick $0). Join us before each screening for a free dinner reception...