Upcoming Events
Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival
Sunday, April 27, 2025 (all day)
The Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival (ICDOCS) is an annual event run by students at the University of Iowa. Our mission is to engage local audiences with the exhibition of recent short films that explore the boundaries of nonfiction filmmaking. We seek innovative new works of 30 minutes or less that both complicate and expand upon conventional approaches to nonfiction and documentary.The festival runs from April 25 at 3 p.m. to April 27 at 9 p.m. with 7 different competitive...
Wide Lens: LISTENING
Thursday, May 8, 2025 5:30pm
In a world full of noise, we often try to listen—to conversations with colleagues and family, to music in our headphones, to videos blasting from our smartphones. We hear all these things daily, but what does it mean to truly listen? In what sense do devices also listen to us? What is the role of silence in listening? How has listening changed over time? Can political tensions be solved through listening? How is listening both an art and a science?This Wide Lens event brings together researchers...
Si No Sanas Hoy, Sanarás Mañana
Friday, May 9, 2025 7:00pm to 9:00pm
Si No Sanas Hoy, Sanarás Mañana, a group exhibition whose title translates to “If you don’t heal today, you’ll heal tomorrow.” This exhibition brings together Iowa-based creatives of Latin American descent in a dialogue centered around healing—whether physical, emotional, or symbolic. Participating artists include members of the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and visual activists from Des Moines.
Obermann End-of-Year Writing Retreat
Monday, May 12 to Friday, May 16, 2025 (all day)
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...
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Upcoming Application Deadlines
Upcoming Application Deadlines
News
A Year in the Life of the Obermann Center
In the last academic year, the Obermann Center directly served 139 faculty, staff, and graduate students as Fellows-in-Residence and Affiliated Scholars. These participants represent 46 different University of Iowa departments and units and 10 colleges. In addition, hundreds of people from across campus, the greater Iowa City area, and throughout the state attended our programs. Here is just a...
New Film Celebrates the Humanities
"The more technologically sophisticated we are, the more deeply we need to understand one another. [We need] to teach people empathy, because empathy does not come naturally; to encourage curiosity in broad and diverse ways. And the humanities does those things," says Obermann Director Teresa Mangum in a new film, The Centrality of the Humanities, produced by the Robert Penn Warren Center for the...
Internationally Renowned Darwin Biographer to Speak
Exploring Darwin's Motives: Why did Charles Darwin, a rich and impeccably upright gentleman, go out of his way to privately develop a subversive image of human evolution in 1837-39? Why did he pursue the subject with tenacity for three decades before publishing The Descent of Man in 1871? Internationally renowned Darwin biographer James Moore will address these questions and others in his lecture,...
The Unintended Consequences of Rankings
We are a society obsessed with quantifying and ranking things. Neurosurgeons, small towns, and nasal sprays all have their own ranking lists. Someone is a winner and someone is a loser. While many of us are aware of this increased quantification and vaguely understand its potential dangers, Michael Sauder (Sociology, CLAS) is working to make the unintended consequences of this trend and fascination...
Memorializing the Cold War, One Ambiguous Site at a Time
Memorializing the Cold War One Ambiguous Site at a Time: How should the Cold War be memorialized? This question forms the backbone of the Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grant project of Sarah Kanouse (Art & Art History, CLAS) and Shiloh Krupar (Geography, Georgetown University).Through their “wishful federal agency,” The National Toxic Land/Labor Conservation Service,” also known as the National...
Imagining America: A Call to Action
A group of nine University of Iowa faculty members, graduate students, and staff attended the Imagining America conference in Syracuse, New York from October 4-6, 2013, "A Call to Action."Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life is a consortium of universities and organizations dedicated...
