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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

Teaching Sustainability—Across the Disciplines

Teach-in Focuses on Sustainability Curricula Across Campus Across the globe, people strive for sustainable development, which the 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development famously defined as a way of living that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” How can the University of Iowa campus address the great...

Marilynne Robinson to Deliver Lecture, "The American Scholar Now"

As part of the Creative Matters series, Marilynne Robinson will give a lecture titled "The American Scholar Now," on December 9 from 5:30-6:30 pm at The Englert Theatre. This event is free and open to the public. Marilynne Robinson is the recipient of a National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama, for “her grace and intelligence in writing.” She is the author of Lila, winner of...

2016 Graduate Institute Fellows Announced

Seventeen UI graduate students from across campus, representing four different colleges, have been selected for the seventh annual Obermann Graduate Institute on Engagement and the Academy. This year's co-directors, Craig Just (Civil & Environmental Engineering) and Jennifer Kayle (Dance), and Senior Graduate Fellows Anna Swanson (Cinematic Arts and Gender, Women's & Sexuality Studies) and Jessica...

Diverse Voices "Write to Change the World" - The OpEd Project at the UI

Taking the Plunge in Public Writing — Women represent almost 50 percent of the world’s population. Why is it, then, that the range of voices heard in the world is incredibly narrow and comes from a tiny sliver of the population: mostly western, older, privileged, and overwhelmingly—85 percent!—male? University of Iowa Obermann Center for Advanced Studies Director Teresa Mangum wants to get...

Jessica Anthony: Graduate Institute Alumna Dances with and for the Underserved

Jessica Anthony is committed to using dance to tell previously silenced stories. A Visiting Professor in Dance, Anthony is currently co-directing Dancers in Company with fellow faculty member Michael Sakamoto, and the two are breathing new life into the 32-year old touring company. Dancers in Company has long held the mission of preparing University of Iowa dance students for the experience...
Don Quixote in Chinese

Don Quixote in 140 Characters

Can one of the world's most iconic books be boiled down to a Tweetable 140 characters? Don Quixote was parodied or plagiarized, depending on how you look at it, before Cervantes could even write the second volume chronicling the misadventures of an errant knight and his loyal sidekick. The 400-year old tome has inspired a plethora of adaptations, including ballets, symphonies, cartoons, films...

Recent Events

Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing promotional image

Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing

Tuesday, January 4, 2022 10:00am to 12:00pm
Virtual

This is the first in a series of two workshops on teaching with writing on January 4th and 6th from 10 am to 12 pm. The January 4th workshop will focus on designing meaningful writing assignments, teaching analytical reading skills, and scaffolding students through the writing process. The January 6th workshop will focus on responding to and assessing student writing, and dealing with grammar and mechanics.

Faculty and TAs in all disciplines, departments, and colleges (particularly instructors...

Economic Development as Social Justice — An Obermann Conversation promotional image

Economic Development as Social Justice — An Obermann Conversation

Thursday, December 2, 2021 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Virtual

This summer, a new Story Map of Black-owned businesses in Johnson County was created. It connects users to a rich and ever-growing directory of businesses and entrepreneurs in the eastern Iowa corridor and challenges us to understand the connection between economic opportunities and social justice. Our speakers will help us understand historic barriers faced by BIPOC people interested in starting a business, and why tearing down these barriers matters to all of us.

Speakers:

Daria Fisher...
Understanding Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: a method for facilitating useful feedback sessions on creative work promotional image

Understanding Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: a method for facilitating useful feedback sessions on creative work

Thursday, December 2, 2021 11:00am to 12:30pm
Virtual

Vincent Thomas of Towson University worked with Liz Lerman for years as part of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and has an intimate and multi-dimensional understanding of how to apply the CRP across disciplines. In this talk, Professor Thomas will introduce the process, guide us through its application, and answer questions about how to adapt the process to all forms of creative work.

Free and open to all. Join us on Zoom.

This event is hosted by the Department of Theatre Arts, with support from...

Misinformation and Media Literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa promotional image

Misinformation and Media Literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa

Friday, November 19, 2021 10:00am to 11:15am
Virtual

Join us for a panel presentation and discussion about teaching media literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa and a theory of misinformation literacy.

Panelists:

Peter Cunliffe-Jones Chido Onumah Cornia Pretorius

Peter Cunliffe-Jones was a journalist for AFP news agency for 25 years from 1990 – in western Europe, the Balkans, Nigeria and Hong Kong, as chief editor Asia-Pacific. In 2012 he founded Africa's first fact-checking organization, Africa Check in South Africa. He is a visiting researcher...

Working with a Literary Agent: An Obermann Get It Done workshop promotional image

Working with a Literary Agent: An Obermann Get It Done workshop

Monday, November 15, 2021 12:00pm
Virtual

Featuring Meenakshi Gigi Durham (UI Ombuds, GWSS, and Journalism & Mass Communication) and Carrie Schuettpelz (School of Planning and Public Affairs).

Increasingly, academic authors are seeking ways to publish books that will have appeal beyond their disciplinary audience. Whether it’s a matter of landing a book contract with a non-academic press or finding avenues toward broader readership, such as through magazines and podcasts, having a literary agent can be very helpful. In this GET IT...

What Do We Mean by Research Now?— Perspectives from Academic Podcasters in the US and Canada promotional image

What Do We Mean by Research Now?— Perspectives from Academic Podcasters in the US and Canada

Friday, November 12, 2021 12:30pm to 1:30pm
Virtual

The UI Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and Humanities for the Public Good are delighted to welcome academic podcasters in the US and Canada for the third round of “What Do We Mean by Research Now?” With the explosion of podcasts across disciplines in the past decade, humanities researchers are finding that podcasts and podcasting can encourage new forms of collaboration, knowledge, and public engagement. But as with any new form of scholarship, podcasts pose challenges for evaluation and...