Upcoming Events & Deadlines

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants promotional image

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants

Thursday, April 1, 2027 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 10 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 who have not received a SIP award in the past academic year.

Application...

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...

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News

Dave Gould

To the Class of 2019 - Inspiration from Obermann Public Scholar Dave Gould

David Gould, Obermann Public Scholar, is spending this fall semester introducing University of Iowa undergraduates to a cast of amazing, inspiring visitors. From a master storyteller from The Moth and musicians from the Cirque du Soleil , to the co-founder of Girls on the Run and the creator of an online funding company, this eclectic group of guests will help students consider what makes for a...
Dickens Universe

Opportunities for Grad Students at Obermann

The Obermann Center offers a growing number of opportunities for UI graduate students—from courses to a research assistantship. As we begin the 2015-16 academic year, we wanted to provide an overview for students, as well as for faculty advisors and graduate directors. Graduate Institute on Engagement and the Academy This year, we celebrate the 10th anniversary of our signature program, the...
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Philosopher Promotes Everyday Practice of His Field—And Lands Dream Job

“The Institute [on Engagement and the Academy] really pushed me to figure out what civically engaged scholarship looked like,” says Brian Collins. “It was—and sometimes still is—difficult for me to wrap my head around how my scholarship as a philosopher could directly apply to and benefit from this kind of work.” That has not stopped Collins from imagining ways to share philosophy and its...
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Medieval Scholars Get Messy with NEH Manuscript Production Seminar

Most of what we know about the literature, art, and science of the Middle Ages has been interpreted by scholars from texts hand-scribed on parchment. And though they return to these illuminating manuscripts for more clues, few scholars deeply understand the process of their production. Providing scholars with hands-on experience is the central...
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Scenes from Anthropocene Symposium

Several keynote lectures from the 2014-15 Obermann Humanities Symposium, Energy Cultures in the Age of the Anthropocene were filmed and are now available on the Obermann's YouTube channel. Lonnie Thompson: "Climate Change: The Evidence and Our Options"; Jennifer Kayle and UI dancers: "Smoke-Screen: This and Other Warnings"; Charles Mann: "Energy and Climate: A Problem from Hell"...
Schoenberg Self Portrait

The Allure of Concision — Matthew Arndt’s Fascination with Schoenberg’s Shortest Works

“Concise!” In 1909, the composer Arnold Schoenberg wrote to a friend, “My music must be short. Concise! In two notes, not built, but ‘expressed.’ And the result is, I hope, without stylized and sterilized drawn-out sentiment.” This call to simplification marked the beginning of a two-year period of radically unconventional music, even compared with his earlier nontonal music. This period...

Recent Events

Craft Critique Culture Graduate Conference: Black Legacies promotional image

Craft Critique Culture Graduate Conference: Black Legacies

Thursday, April 4, 2024 12:00pm

On April 4–6, 2024, English graduate students are hosting the 23rd annual Craft Critique Culture interdisciplinary graduate conference on the University of Iowa campus. This year’s conference addresses themes of “Black Legacies.” For this conference, “Black Legacies” is, first, a recognition and continued contribution to the history of Black Studies programs in colleges and universities, which emerged in the 1960s and ’70s. “Black Legacies” is also a way to honor and celebrate the power of...

2024 Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day promotional image

2024 Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day

Saturday, March 30, 2024 9:00am to 4:30pm
MacLean Hall

The daylong program includes workshops, interactive talks, math related games and panels of professionals with math-related jobs. Sonia Kovalevsky Day is an opportunity for high school female students to engage in a day of networking, mentoring, and fun! There is no cost to attend the event, and participants have opportunities to meet and talk with university professors and students. 

Fact Sheet

Where: MacLean Hall at the University of Iowa.
When: Saturday, March 30, 2024
Who: High-school...

What She Said — A Workshop on Empowering Women’s Voices in Celebration of Women’s History Month promotional image

What She Said — A Workshop on Empowering Women’s Voices in Celebration of Women’s History Month

Saturday, March 30, 2024 9:00am to 12:00pm

Our voices are an important indicator of who we are. Female-presenting speakers often learn self-undermining speaking habits from the people and society around them. How does the voice contribute to our sense of presence and how others perceive us? Tone, inflection, pace, and volume are some of the vocal elements that provide clues for the listener as to what we think and feel.

In this workshop, UI Theatre Arts professor Mary Mayo will invite you to develop a greater awareness of your voice and...

Stephen Best: “Baldwin's Inarticulacy”

Friday, March 29, 2024 3:30pm to 5:00pm
English-Philosophy Building

The Department of English and Obermann Center are hosting Stephen Best on Friday, March 29 at 3:30 p.m. in 304 EPB (Gerber). UI PhD candidate Sarah Frank will introduce Professor Best and UI Professor Deborah Whaley will serve as respondent.

Stephen Best (Berkeley) is Rachael Anderson Stageberg Chair in English and Director of the Townsend Center for the Humanities. One of the most important scholars of his generation, Professor Best has published two acclaimed monographs: "The Fugitive's...

New Histories for Reproductive Justice: Authors in Conversation promotional image

New Histories for Reproductive Justice: Authors in Conversation

Thursday, March 28, 2024 7:00pm
Prairie Lights Books

Professors Natalie Lira, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; and Angela Hume, University of California, Berkeley, will be in conversation with each other about their recent books on the topics of abortion and the history of sterilization. Their work is deeply informed by and grounded in a reproductive justice framework.

Hosted by the Reproductive Justice Obermann Working Group

Global Visiting Scholar Presentation: Policy Engagement & Development for Women’s Reproductive Health in India promotional image

Global Visiting Scholar Presentation: Policy Engagement & Development for Women’s Reproductive Health in India

Tuesday, March 26, 2024 1:30pm to 2:20pm
College of Public Health Building

Sivakami is a Professor at the Center for Health and Social Sciences, School of Health Systems Studies (SHSS), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. She was also the Chairperson of the Centre for Health and Social Sciences, one of the four centers in SHSS, between June 2015 to June 2021. Sivakami's broad research area includes Demography, Gender and Health. Her specific research areas of interest include Sexual and Reproductive Health including Menarche and Menstrual Hygiene...