Upcoming Events

Wide Lens: LISTENING promotional image

Wide Lens: LISTENING

Thursday, May 8, 2025 5:30pm
Voxman Music Building
In a world full of noise, we often try listening to something: conversations with colleagues and family, music in our headphones, videos blasting from our smartphones. We hear all these things daily, but what does it mean to truly listen? In what sense do devices also listen to us? What is the role of silence in listening? How has listening changed over time? Can political tensions be solved through “listening”? How is listening both an art and a science? This Wide Lens event brings together...
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Upcoming Application Deadlines

Upcoming Application Deadlines

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Fall 2025) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Fall 2025)

Saturday, February 15, 2025 11:59pm
The UI Obermann Center for Advanced studies is currently accepting applications for its new International Fellowships Program, which 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 with...
Spring Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop promotional image

Spring Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop

Wednesday, February 19, 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.
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

Ana Rodriguez and Denise Filios

Connecting 400-Year-Old Knight Errant to UI Students and Community

This fall, University of Iowa students are discovering the charms of an aged knight-errant, his earthy sidekick, and a cast of colorful characters. In celebration of the 400th anniversary of the publication of Don Quixote, Ana Rodríguez-Rodríguez and Denise Filios, professors in Spanish and Portuguese, are co-directing the Obermann–International Programs Humanities Symposium, “Parody, Plagiarism...
I am, I Will, I am Afraid

Traci Molloy and UAY Students Unveil Piece

Traci Molloy, a Brooklyn-based artist and a participant in the 2014 Obermann Summer Seminar, returns to Iowa City in early October to give a lecture and unveil a new artwork that she created with local teenagers. Titled “I Am, I Will, I’m Afraid,” the work combines photography and text composed by twelve self-described youth “outliers” attending United Action for Youth’s Summer Art Workshops. It...
Jack and Trudi Rosazza

Supporting the Obermann Center — Jack and Trudi Rosazza

The support that the Obermann Center receives from friends such as Jack and Trudi Rosazza helps us to deepen and extend our work. This year, for example, we were able to send our director, Teresa Mangum, to a workshop with the OpEd Project. This visionary organization helps underrepresented voices land on the opinion pages of our nation’s newspapers, thereby changing discourses. In November, the...

THE YES MEN leads workshop on UI campus

POROI co-sponsored the YES MEN this August in their visit with the UI Lecture Committee. During that visit, the YES MEN lead a workshop in which they broke down their signature, satirical style of creative, performance-based activism, advising participants on their own change-making initiatives. Participants included student government representatives working to eliminate plastic waste from the...
Dave Gould

To the Class of 2019 - Inspiration from Obermann Public Scholar Dave Gould

David Gould, Obermann Public Scholar, is spending this fall semester introducing University of Iowa undergraduates to a cast of amazing, inspiring visitors. From a master storyteller from The Moth and musicians from the Cirque du Soleil , to the co-founder of Girls on the Run and the creator of an online funding company, this eclectic group of guests will help students consider what makes for a...
Dickens Universe

Opportunities for Grad Students at Obermann

The Obermann Center offers a growing number of opportunities for UI graduate students—from courses to a research assistantship. As we begin the 2015-16 academic year, we wanted to provide an overview for students, as well as for faculty advisors and graduate directors. Graduate Institute on Engagement and the Academy This year, we celebrate the 10th anniversary of our signature program, the...

Recent Events

Pecha Kucha "Engage the Innovators"  promotional image

Pecha Kucha "Engage the Innovators"

Thursday, November 7, 2024 10:00am to 4:00pm
University Capitol Centre
Join us for the University of Iowa’s very first Mental Health and Well-Being Pecha Kucha. Pecha Kucha, Japanese for chit-chat, is a fast paced, imagery-focused workshop that elevates the voices of our campus “mental health and well-being innovators.” Attend these workshops to: •    Discover new ways of thinking about work from a mental health & well-being lens •    Get tangible takeaways about innovative mental health and well-being practices occurring on campus •    Create connections to...
Application Deadline: Obermann Symposium Director (2025–26) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Symposium Director (2025–26)

Wednesday, October 30, 2024 5:00pm
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! These imaginative half- and whole-day symposia connect the arts and humanities with design, politics, health sciences, environmental studies, technology, and other disciplines via a compelling topic. Symposia should...
Counterpoint: The Politics of (International) Writing promotional image

Counterpoint: The Politics of (International) Writing

Monday, October 14, 2024 7:30pm
Voxman Music Building
How do politics affect what poets or novelists write, and even how they write it? How does literature inform political discourse? What is cultural diplomacy, why is it so important, and what is the UI’s role in promoting it? For this inaugural event in the Obermann Center’s new Counterpoint public conversation series, Christopher Merrill — poet, nonfiction writer, translator, editor, and director of the UI’s renowned International Writing Program — and Loren Glass, a historian of creative...
Application Deadline: Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grants (Summer 2025) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grants (Summer 2025)

Wednesday, October 9, 2024 5:00pm
The 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 or four 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...
Keith Haring, Censorship, and the Power of Art | Panel Discussion promotional image

Keith Haring, Censorship, and the Power of Art | Panel Discussion

Thursday, September 26, 2024 6:00pm to 7:30pm
Iowa City Public Library
Join us for a panel discussion exploring the power of art and information in the face of censorship. This collaborative event by the Stanley Museum of Art, the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, and the Iowa City Public Library will explore the enduring impact of Keith Haring's work in the fight against HIV/AIDS. We'll discuss the historical and contemporary implications of banned books on sexual health and the importance of unrestricted access to information. Panel members: • Saba Vlach...
Cultivating Success: International Scholarship and Creative Work promotional image

Cultivating Success: International Scholarship and Creative Work

Thursday, September 26, 2024 1:30pm to 3:00pm
Virtual
Scholarly and creative research activity is a linchpin of faculty life at the University of Iowa. International collaboration has been demonstrated to boost the visibility and impact of research. This webinar will focus on the challenges and rewards of international scholarship, including cross-national research collaborations, grant proposals, ways to promote research to domestic and international audiences, the opportunities and potential pitfalls of publishing in non-US journals, and tactics...