Upcoming Events

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium promotional image

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium

Thursday, March 26 to Friday, March 27, 2026 (all day)
Iowa City Public Library

Directed by Brian R. Farrell, Daria Fisher Page, and Ryan T. Sakoda (UI College of Law), Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research will bring together scholars, community leaders from across the U.S., and professionals who work with rural populations and in rural spaces. During the symposium, attendees will be invited to collaborate in theorizing rurality, share how it impacts their work, examine how rurality is represented and celebrated, and begin to discuss challenges...

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium promotional image

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium

Friday, March 27, 2026 (all day)
Iowa City Public Library

Directed by Brian R. Farrell, Daria Fisher Page, and Ryan T. Sakoda (UI College of Law), Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research will bring together scholars, community leaders from across the U.S., and professionals who work with rural populations and in rural spaces. During the symposium, attendees will be invited to collaborate in theorizing rurality, share how it impacts their work, examine how rurality is represented and celebrated, and begin to discuss challenges...

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants promotional image

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants

Friday, May 8, 2026 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 ten 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

Graduate students: Note that the Graduate College offers Small Grants for the...

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Upcoming Application Deadlines

Upcoming Application Deadlines

Application Deadline: Spring 2026 Obermann Writing Collective promotional image

Application Deadline: Spring 2026 Obermann Writing Collective

Friday, January 23, 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.

In spring 2026, four writing groups will meet in our Writers' Attic at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies at 111 Church St. Each group will meet once a week for 1.5 hours, beginning the week of...

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...

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Fall 2026) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Fall 2026)

Saturday, February 14, 2026 (all day)
111 Church Street

The UI Obermann Center for Advanced studies is accepting applications for Fall 2026 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 with...

Spring Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop promotional image

Spring Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop

Tuesday, February 17, 2026 5:00pm
111 Church Street

Co-sponsored by the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and the Office of the Vice President for Research, Book Ends—Obermann 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: Small Important Project Grants promotional image

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants

Friday, May 8, 2026 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 ten 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

Graduate students: Note that the Graduate College offers Small Grants for the...

News

Michael Hill, photo by The HawkEye

Follow the children: Michael Hill views the adolescent character as a weathervane

Jennifer New
In a 1949 poem, Gwendolyn Brooks asked, “What shall I give my children? . . . / Who are adjudged the leastwise of the land . . . ” The question is central to Michael Hill’s new book, A Little Child Shall Lead Them: Adolescence in African American Novels, 1941-2008.Hill, a University of Iowa professor of English and African American Studies and Fall 2014 Obermann Fellow in Residence, is curious...

Designing the Digital Future - A Symposium Summary

Designing the Digital Future – A Symposium Summary To many, informatics means big data. But as the 2014 Obermann Working Symposium, “Designing the Digital Future: A Human-Centered Approach to Informatics,” November 7-8, 2014, demonstrated, informatics technology intersects with narrative, the arts, collaborative learning, dance, diversity, narrative, social justice movements, values sensitive...

2015 Obermann Graduate Institute Fellows Selected

The following students have been selected for the 2015 Obermann Graduate Institute. As Obermann Graduate Fellows, they will participate in a one-week intensive institute exploring how to combine public engagement with their research and teaching. The Institute, now in its ninth year, is co-directed by Barbara Eckstein (English, CLAS) and Craig Just (Civil and Environmental Engineering), with...

Arts, Education, and Social Justice: Meet Informatics

The word “informatics” summons the 1999 film “The Matrix” — a terrifying world of streaming numbers (and Keanu Reeves). In the real world, patterns in a sea of data can become life rafts, for example, to individuals suffering from disease or activists tracking pollution. Designing ways for humans to interact effectively with computers and information is the goal of researchers in the growing area of computer science sometimes called human-computer interaction or HCI.
Performance from the Dance.Draw series at UNC-Charlotte, by Rob Singh-Latulipe.

Designing the Digital Future: Highlighting Informatics Work in the Arts and Humanities

Search “informatics” on Wikipedia and you’ll get a hint of the very wide swath that this relatively new field has already cut: bioinformatics, irrigation informatics, legal informatics, music informatics, cheminformatics, and disease informatics are just a few of its subfields. An idea that has been around for barely a half century...
2014 Imagining America PAGE Fellows

Reflections on Imagining America from UI’s PAGE Fellows

Moving the Middle — Reflections on Imagining America’s national conference by Heather Draxl: The theme of this year’s Imagining America conference, held in Atlanta, Georgia, was “Organizing. Culture. Change.” Those three words were intended to “represent concentrations of energy and activity across higher education and within the IA consortium” and played a role in one of the conference’s primary...
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Recent Events

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

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

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

Wednesday, December 3, 2025 8:30am to 12:30pm
Iowa Memorial Union (IMU)

This seminar will cover fundamental concepts of proposal planning and writing for the Arts and Humanities faculty backed by concrete tips and operational strategies that support planning and longer-term sustainability.

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

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...

Canceled
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...