Upcoming Events & Deadlines

Planning and Writing Successful Grant Proposals in the Creative Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities Seminar promotional image

Planning and Writing Successful Grant Proposals in the Creative Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities Seminar

Thursday, January 14, 2027 8:30am to 12:30pm
Iowa Memorial Union (IMU)

The Research Development Office is hosting an in-person grant writing seminar, Planning and Writing Successful Grant Proposals in the Creative Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities, that will be held on Wednesday, Jan. 13 from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Thursday, Jan. 14 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the IMU. The seminar is presented by AtKisson Training Group.

This seminar will cover fundamental concepts of proposal planning and writing for the Arts and Humanities faculty backed by concrete...

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...

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News

Typewriters for Eskimos: Imperialist Rhetoric & Puerto Rico

In 1898, soon-to-be U.S. Senator Albert Beveridge (R-Indiana) urged his fellow Congressmen to “administer government” to the “savages and senile peoples” of Puerto Rico, newly acquired by the U.S. “Shall we save them from [possession by other nations],” he cried, “to give them a self-rule of tragedy? It would be like giving a razor to a babe and telling it to shave itself. It would be like giving...
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...

Recent Events

Nomination Deadline: Obermann Interdisciplinary Achievement Award promotional image

Nomination Deadline: Obermann Interdisciplinary Achievement Award

Monday, February 2, 2026 5:00pm
111 Church Street

The new Obermann Interdisciplinary Achievement Award recognizes individuals or teams whose trajectories have engaged diverse disciplines to produce insights that would be unattainable within a single academic silo. These scholars cultivate collaborative work, fostering dialogue across academic fields and institutional units. Their research or creative work engages with foundational questions that resonate across society. By recognizing interdisciplinary excellence, the Obermann Center for...

Virtual Editorial Session with Mark Simpson-Vos promotional image

Virtual Editorial Session with Mark Simpson-Vos

Wednesday, December 3, 2025 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Virtual

Working on a book proposal? Starting to turn your dissertation into a book? Have questions about the academic publishing industry? Join us for one of two “ask-an-editor-anything” sessions with former Obermann Editor-in-Residence Mark Simpson-Vos.

Wednesday, Dec. 3 from noon to 1 p.m. and 4–5 p.m. (on Zoom).

Space is limited, RSVP required. RSVP here: https://obermann.uiowa.edu/MSV-virtual

Virtual Editorial Session with Mark Simpson-Vos promotional image

Virtual Editorial Session with Mark Simpson-Vos

Wednesday, December 3, 2025 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Virtual

Working on a book proposal? Starting to turn your dissertation into a book? Have questions about the academic publishing industry? Join us for one of two “ask-an-editor-anything” sessions with former Obermann Editor-in-Residence Mark Simpson-Vos.

Wednesday, Dec. 3 from noon to 1 p.m. and 4–5 p.m. (on Zoom).

Space is limited, RSVP required. RSVP here: https://obermann.uiowa.edu/MSV-virtual

Mental Health & Well-Being Pecha Kucha: Engage the Innovators promotional image

Mental Health & Well-Being Pecha Kucha: Engage the Innovators

Thursday, November 13, 2025 12:00pm to 4:00pm
University Capitol Centre

Join us for the University of Iowa's second annual Mental Health & Well-Being Pecha Kucha! Pecha Kucha is Japanese for chit-chat and emphasizes storytelling via imagery over words. This fun, interactive, and highly engaging workshop style elevates the voices of our campus “mental health and well-being innovators” to provide you:

New ways of thinking about your work from a mental health & well-being lens

Tangible takeaways about innovative mental health & well-being practices occurring on campus

Con...

"Behind the Book: The Labor of Acquisitions Editing" — Lecture by Sara Jo Cohen promotional image

"Behind the Book: The Labor of Acquisitions Editing" — Lecture by Sara Jo Cohen

Tuesday, November 4, 2025 5:00pm
111 Church Street

Publishing a scholarly book is not a solitary act of authorship, but a collaborative process in which scholars work with a team of editors. Scholars don’t just submit manuscripts; they engage in sustained dialogue with editors who help to shape, refine, and position their work. Far from being gatekeepers, acquisition editors are collaborators, advocates, and stewards of knowledge. Their work is especially critical as they align the intellectual ambitions of scholars with the practical demands of...

RSVP Deadline: Undergraduate Career Session with Sara Jo Cohen, Obermann Editor-in-Residence promotional image

RSVP Deadline: Undergraduate Career Session with Sara Jo Cohen, Obermann Editor-in-Residence

Friday, October 31, 2025 5:00pm
111 Church Street

Interested in a career in publishing? In this session on Tuesday, Nov 4 at noon at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, Sara Jo Cohen, Editorial Director at University of Michigan Press, will reflect on her own career path, beginning with her undergraduate experience and the choices that helped shape her trajectory into academic publishing. She’ll discuss how she gained relevant experience, navigated early roles in the industry, and built a career in academic publishing. This is an...