Upcoming Events

Locating Reproductive Justice: Global & Regional Perspectives — 2024–25 Obermann Arts & Humanities Symposium promotional image

Locating Reproductive Justice: Global & Regional Perspectives — 2024–25 Obermann Arts & Humanities Symposium

Thursday, March 27 to Friday, March 28, 2025 (all day)
As calls for transnational solidarity among reproductive justice movements emerge, communities are asking how reproductive liberation is tethered to various social movements. Directed by Lina-Maria Murillo (Gender, Women's, & Sexuality Studies and History) and Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz (Communication Studies and Gender, Women's, & Sexuality Studies), this symposium brings together scholars and artists with local, regional, and global perspectives to bear on the pursuit of reproductive justice as we...
Graduate Student Session with Mark Simpson-Vos, Obermann Editor-in-Residence promotional image

Graduate Student Session with Mark Simpson-Vos, Obermann Editor-in-Residence

Thursday, April 17, 2025 10:00am to 11:00am
111 Church Street
This interactive talk for PhD and MFA students in the writing disciplines will outline the publishing process for first books. The session will guide graduate students through the steps of the academic publishing process, with a focus on demystifying the journey from dissertation/thesis to manuscript to published book. Key topics will include identifying the right academic publisher, understanding peer review, negotiating contracts, and building a strong proposal. Led by Mark Simpson-Vos, Senior...
"Beyond Crisis: Restoring the Creative Partnership between Authors and Publishers" - Lecture by Mark Simpson-Vos promotional image

"Beyond Crisis: Restoring the Creative Partnership between Authors and Publishers" - Lecture by Mark Simpson-Vos

Thursday, April 17, 2025 3:30pm to 4:30pm
111 Church Street
At this public lecture, Mark Simpson-Vos — Senior Executive Editor at University of North Carolina Press — will discuss the way commentators have since the 1970s routinely trotted out the idea that scholarly publishing is in crisis, and how the stance of publishers in particular has been to shrug off such ideas. In this moment, however, it is impossible to ignore the deep strains within the scholarly publishing ecosystem, amidst increasingly turbulent times for American higher education. Lament...
Faculty Book Proposal Workshop with Mark Simpson-Vos promotional image

Faculty Book Proposal Workshop with Mark Simpson-Vos

Friday, April 18, 2025 9:00am to 12:00pm
111 Church Street
For this workshop, 4–5 UI faculty members will submit book proposal drafts for a collaborative feedback session led by Mark Simpson-Vos, Senior Executive Editor at University of North Carolina Press. The session is designed to help authors write a compelling book proposal, with a focus on crafting a strong pitch, identifying target audiences, and outlining the project’s structure. The workshop’s goal is for participants to walk away with a strong and cohesive book proposal, increasing their...
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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

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Inquiring About Affect - A Conversation with Naomi Greyser

How might the work of artists, scholars, and activists be more pleasurable and easeful? How might our working environments and labor conditions be more healthy? These are some of the questions this year’s Obermann Humanities Symposium, Affect & Inquiry, will address. Co-directed by Naomi Greyser (Rhetoric, CLAS), Deborah Whaley (American Studies, CLAS), and Jeffrey Bennett (Communication Studies...

2nd Iowa Humanities Festival: From Jamaica to Rome in a Day

Alta Vista, Bettendorf, Camanche, Elkader, Humboldt, Jamaica, McGregor, Persia, Rome, Zwingle—far-flung corners of the world have found their way into the very names of Iowa cities and towns. The 2014 Iowa Humanities Festival, “A World at Home | A Home in the World,” invites you to travel the world while staying right at home in the “French” city of Des Moines...
Sarah Guyer

Designing the Future for Publicly Engaged Research and Teaching in the Humanities

A recent New York Times Opinion piece by Nicholas Kristof—“Professors, We Need You!”—inspired national debate about the status of “public intellectuals.” The Obermann Center continues the conversation on March 10, 2014, with the next two speakers in our yearlong...

Andrea Charise On the Health Humanities Frontier

Using music to manage chronic pain. Training the eye to see emotional as well as physical symptoms of suffering in a gallery of portraits. Absorbing a sense of well-being through encounters with the written word. Bringing together the arts, humanities, and health sciences offers incalculable benefits. This April, the Obermann Center will offer a...

Comics in the Library, Museum and Classroom - Rachel Williams and Corey Creekmur Make a Case for Comics in Academia

Comics: Their Time Has Come — Three years ago, Corey Creekmur (Cinema & Comparative Literature and English, CLAS) and Rachel Williams (Art & Art History and GWSS, CLAS) and their colleague Ana Merino (Spanish & Portuguese, CLAS) co-directed a highly successful Obermann Humanities Symposium, "Comics, Creativity, and Culture." The three-day event fostered dynamic exchanges between notable creators and...
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Wall to Wall

Standing on the Great Wall of China in 1991, Mohammad Chaichian wondered at the feat of architecture and engineering that extended in front of him as far as he could see. Although the wall was ostensibly built to keep out nomadic “barbarians,” Chaichian, a sociology professor with training in architecture and urban planning, wondered how those on the other side, the so-called barbarians, viewed it...

Recent Events

Dissertation Camp promotional image

Dissertation Camp

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 9:00am to 1:00pm
Virtual
The 2024 dissertation writing camp for graduate students

Lecture: "John Luther Long, David Belasco, Giacomo Puccini, and Butterfly’s Journey to La Scala and the Met."

Wednesday, May 8, 2024 5:30pm to 6:30pm
Voxman Music Building
Lecture by Professor Anna Barker
Application Deadline: Obermann Faculty Fellows (Fall 2024) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Faculty Fellows (Fall 2024)

Tuesday, May 7, 2024 5:00pm
Obermann Center Faculty Fellows (formerly Fellows-in-Residence) fully devote themselves to projects within an interdisciplinary community. The program supports artists, researchers, and scholars during periods when focus and feedback are crucial. The 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...
Obermann Center 45th Anniversary Celebration, Featuring Keynotes by Joy Connolly & Antoinette Burton promotional image

Obermann Center 45th Anniversary Celebration, Featuring Keynotes by Joy Connolly & Antoinette Burton

Monday, May 6, 2024 5:00pm
Hancher Auditorium
Please join the Vice President for Research at the Hancher Auditorium's Stanley Café at 5 p.m. on Monday, May 6 to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies. The event will feature guests Joy Connolly and Antoinette Burton, prestigious national leaders in the humanities and social sciences. All are invited to the reception afterward to celebrate this important anniversary and the Center’s outgoing director, Professor Teresa Mangum.  Please RSVP to let us know...
Application Deadline: Obermann Working Groups (2024–25) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Working Groups (2024–25)

Wednesday, May 1, 2024 5:00pm
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 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 moment when cross...

Film History Now: A Conversation with Pardis Dabashi and Allyson Nadia Field

Tuesday, April 30, 2024 12:30pm to 2:00pm
Virtual
What does the practice of film history look like today? What different methods—from interdisciplinary inquiry to speculative historiography and public humanities projects—are scholars using to tell new stories about film culture? Please join us to discuss these and other questions with two highly accomplished scholars: Pardis Dabashi (Bryn Mawr College) and Allyson Nadia Field (University of Chicago). Dr. Dabashi will discuss her recently published monograph Losing the Plot: Form and Feeling in...