Upcoming Events

NEA Big Read | Free Book Pick Up promotional image

NEA Big Read | Free Book Pick Up

Monday, January 20, 9:00am to Wednesday, February 12, 2025 5:00pm
Stanley Museum of Art
The Stanley Museum of Art will launch its National Endowment for the Arts Big Read program on Jan. 20, 2025, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This event features a community wide reading of the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison. Pick up a free copy of Beloved at 12 pickup locations across Iowa City between Jan. 20 and Feb. 12, 2025.  Register here to pickup a free copy: https://uiowa.doubleknot.com/event/nea-big-reads-beloved-by-toni-morriso... An email confirmation must be presented to claim a book...
Don't Panic! Rethinking How We Frame Difficult Content in the Classroom promotional image

Don't Panic! Rethinking How We Frame Difficult Content in the Classroom

Thursday, February 20, 2025 4:00pm
Phillips Hall
Join us for a conversation about trigger warnings, content alerts, and other approaches to teaching potentially upsetting topics — led by Newell Ann Van Auken, Associate Professor of Instruction, Division of World Languages, Literatures, & Cultures. Co-hosted by the Center for Language and Culture Learning, the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies (CAPS), and the Chinese Humanities and Arts Workshop (CHAW), an Obermann Working Group.
Artist Talk with Jerron Herman promotional image

Artist Talk with Jerron Herman

Thursday, February 20, 2025 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Public Space One
Join us for an inspiring conversation with acclaimed choreographer and disabled artist Jerron Herman, an artist compelled to create images of freedom.
Book Matters: Brady G’Sell and Meena Khandelwal in conversation with Elana Buch promotional image

Book Matters: Brady G’Sell and Meena Khandelwal in conversation with Elana Buch

Tuesday, February 25, 2025 7:00pm to 8:30pm
Prairie Lights Books
Join us for a reading and discussion, co-sponsored by Prairie Lights, to celebrate recent works from Brady G’Sell and Meena Khandelwal, faculty in the University of Iowa Department of Anthropology and the Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies Program. After the reading, Elana Buch, associate professor of anthropology, will join G’Sell and Khandelwal for a conversation and Q&A with the audience. Light refreshments will follow.
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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

Humanities Without Walls — Opportunities for Humanities Faculty and Graduate Students

Andrew W. Mellon–funded Grand Challenge — The Global Midwest As we announced last year, the Obermann Center is one of 15 centers in the $3,000,000 Mellon-funded Humanities Without Walls Consortium headed by Professor Dianne Harris of the University of Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities. Applications are welcome from faculty at two or more consortial universities whose scholarship...

"Obermann Afternoons" Line Up Announced

Obermann Afternoons, the Obermann Center's informal speakers series, launches again this fall. “Anthropocene 101" leads the way on September 17 from 4:00 to 5:30 pm, as Barbara Eckstein (English, CLAS), Bradley Cramer (Earth & Environmental Sciences, CLAS), and Tyler Priest (History, CLAS) give a preview of their spring Humanities Symposium, Energy Cultures in the Age of the Anthropocene. They will...
Food for thought poster

Food for Thought, First Theme Semester

Obermann Co-sponsors Next Year's "Food for Thought"—First University of Iowa Theme Semester. It began with a small group of people and a big idea: rallying academic, arts, and community events around a common theme, connecting people and programs in original ways. Over the last few months, that idea has taken root. Next spring, it’ll bear fruit with a collection of initiatives under the banner...

Designing Technologies for Children

Seven years ago when Juan Pablo Hourcade (Computer Science, CLAS) published a review article about designing technologies for children, smartphones were not widespread, the iPad hadn’t been introduced, nor had motion-sensing gaming devices like Kinect. A lot has changed in terms of how children can access technology and what they can do it with. And yet there still is not a succinct overview of...

Christopher Newfield penetrates "humanities crisis"

On April 28, we invite you to join Christopher Newfield (University of California, Santa Barbara) as he asks, “What Are the Humanities For—in the 21st Century?” One of the country’s most energetic analysts of higher education funding, Newfield has such diverse interests and expertise that his talk may range from literature to economics and corporate culture to the roots of American education and...

Health Humanities: Building the Future of Research and Teaching

Health Humanities: Building the Future of Research and Teaching, a two-day Obermann Working Symposium, promises to be a paradigm-shifting moment for the University of Iowa and a leap forward in the larger field of the health humanities. The six keynote speakers include the editors of the two forthcoming health humanities anthologies, Paul Crawford and Tess Jones, as well as the editor of a graphic...

Recent Events

Murata Sayaka and Ginny Tapley Takemori promotional image

Murata Sayaka and Ginny Tapley Takemori

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 2:00pm to 3:15pm
Phillips Hall
The Japan Foundation New York together with International Programs, the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, the Obermann Center, and the Division of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures present a workshop and bilingual reading with Murata Sayaka and Ginny Tapley Takemori on Tuesday, October 30, 2018. Murata Sayaka is one of Japan’s most prominent writers, known for her frank explorations of the role of sex and gender in contemporary society. She received the prestigious Akutagawa Prize...
Gerrymandering, Voter Registration, and Access to the Ballot—An Obermann Conversation promotional image

Gerrymandering, Voter Registration, and Access to the Ballot—An Obermann Conversation

Thursday, October 25, 2018 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Iowa City Public Library
How is voting restricted in our country in lawful ways? For this Obermann Conversation, political scientist Tracy Osborn, grassroots organizer Sharon Lake and legal advisor Andrew Bribriesco will discuss issues ranging from gerrymandering, Iowa's voter registration law, voter identification, and lack of voting rights for felons.  Tracy Osborn is an associate professor in the UI Department of Political Science and the director of the Politics and Policy Program at the Iowa Public Policy Center...
Get It Done! Flow: Finding (And Keeping!) Joy in Academic Writing & Research  promotional image

Get It Done! Flow: Finding (And Keeping!) Joy in Academic Writing & Research

Tuesday, October 16, 2018 12:00pm to 1:00pm
111 Church Street
Most of us have experienced inspiration and a sense of discovery in our research, moments that remind us, this is why I do it. Flow, however, can feel all too rare—crowded out by meetings, never-ending email, or the challenges we face when we sit down to write and think.  Amidst these intensities, finding (and keeping!) joy in our research might seem like a luxury. Yet in addition to potentially making our days more pleasant, cultivating pleasure in our research can enhance its rigor...
Exploring Women in Sports and Title IX's Legacy—An Obermann Conversation promotional image

Exploring Women in Sports and Title IX's Legacy—An Obermann Conversation

Tuesday, September 25, 2018 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Iowa City Public Library
Our first Obermann Conversation of the semester features Diane Williams (M.S., M.A.Ed., and doctoral candidate in American Studies and GWSS) and Megan Oesting, head coach of the Eastern Iowa Swim Federation and the Eastern Iowa Swim School. Diane and Megan, both lifelong athletes and coaches, will provide a primer on Title IX, why it was created and how it’s been used (or not used) since its inception; review the experiences of female coaches; and discuss how having a female coach affects...
What Happens When Robots Write? - A talk by Bill Hart-Davidson promotional image

What Happens When Robots Write? - A talk by Bill Hart-Davidson

Monday, September 24, 2018 4:00pm to 5:30pm
English-Philosophy Building
Did a robot write this blurb? How might we know? And most importantly, can we live, together, with robots who write? In this talk, Bill Hart-Davidson, Associate Professor and Senior Researcher in the Writing in Digital Environments Research Center and Associate Dean for Graduate Education at Michigan State University, will address that last question to those of us who make our living by reading and writing, and teaching others to read, write and speak well, ethically, with grace and creativity...
2019 Graduate Institute on Engagement & the Academy Info Session promotional image

2019 Graduate Institute on Engagement & the Academy Info Session

Friday, September 14, 2018 9:00am to 10:00am
111 Church Street
Learn about the Graduate Institute and ask questions of a former graduate fellow. Obermann Center Assistant Director Jennifer New will lead the session. If you are interested in applying for the January 2019 Obermann Graduate Institute on Engagement and the Academy, please attend! Free and open to all.