This free screening of the film La Bamba (1987) is part of the yearlong Mellon Foundation-funded Sawyer Seminar on "Imagining Latinidades: Articulations of National Belonging." The screening will be followed with a post-discussion. La Bamba is the biographical story of 1950s rock 'n' roll rage Ritchie Valens (born Ricardo Valenzuela), played by Lou Diamond Phillips. The film follows how the 17-year-old Californian went from farm-laborer to overnight success, including his untimely death in a...

Lisa Tetrault is Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University. She specializes in the history of U.S. women, gender, race, and American democracy. Her book, The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898, traces the making of a story about the foundations of American feminism and interrogates that story’s political purposes, both inside and outside the movement. It won the Organization of American Historians’ women’s history book prize. Tetrault lectures...

Dr. Heather Sinclair will be giving a lectured titled, "No Room for Maria at the Inn": Race, Nation, and the Restriction of Maternity Care in El Paso, Texas: 1922-42.  Heather Sinclair is an Assistant Professor of History at Dixie State University. Her research focuses on the history of reproduction, midwifery, childbirth, and public health in the late nineteenth- and twentieth century US viewed through the lens of race, gender, sexuality, and settler colonialism. She has a background in...

A leading historian of the Women’s Rights and Suffrage Movement in the Nineteenth Century explores the myths associated with popular understandings of when, how, and why women initiated social movements for equal citizenship rights.

On Friday, September 27, from 4:00–5:30 p.m. at the Iowa City Public Library (Room A), the Obermann Center will host a Humanities Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, especially designed to feature the work of UI humanities graduate students. The 3MT competition challenges graduate students to articulate their complex research clearly and concisely to non-specialist audiences; the goal of presenters is to present their research in three minutes or fewer. The winner of the Obermann Humanities...

In this informal workshop, Obermann Center Director Teresa Mangum will share tips and advice on writing recommendation letters. Come with questions—and bring your own lunch! This is an informal, lunchtime workshop that is part of the GET IT DONE! series. Everyone is welcome; no registration is necessary.