Upcoming Events

The Swine Republic: A reading by Chris Jones at Prairie Lights Bookstore promotional image

The Swine Republic: A reading by Chris Jones at Prairie Lights Bookstore

Thursday, April 3, 2025 7:00pm
Prairie Lights Books
Come to Prairie Lights Books for a special Darwin Day reading by Chris Jones, author of The Swine Republic. Published in 2023 by local publisher Ice Cube Press and named a 2024 "Great Reads from Great Places" book by the Library of Congress, The Swine Republic provides extensive research and reportage on the truth behind Iowa's infamously poor water quality, which you "...won't get ... from Iowa’s agricultural and political leaders." (icecubepress.com) Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature...
Webinar: Exploring Anne Frank & Difficult Life Stories promotional image

Webinar: Exploring Anne Frank & Difficult Life Stories

Friday, April 4, 2025 10:00am to 12:00pm
Virtual
Discover how Anne Frank’s story continues to shape conversations on empathy, education, and human rights in a compelling webinar featuring scholars from across the U.S. Join the University  of Iowa (UI) Anne Frank Initiative, an International Programs affinity group, on Friday, April 4, 2025, at 10 a.m. (CDT) as they host an insightful and engaging webinar featuring several esteemed authors from the groundbreaking book, Exploring Anne Frank and Difficult Life Stories (Routledge, 2025). Hear...
Mutations and Permutations of Care: Graduate Conference promotional image

Mutations and Permutations of Care: Graduate Conference

Friday, April 4, 2025 12:00pm to 5:00pm
Schaeffer Hall
Mutations and Permutations of Care: Graduate Conference promotional image

Mutations and Permutations of Care: Graduate Conference

Friday, April 4 12:00pm to Saturday, April 5, 2025 5:00pm
Schaeffer Hall
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Upcoming Application Deadlines

Upcoming Application Deadlines

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...
Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Spring 2026) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Spring 2026)

Friday, October 24, 2025 11:59pm
111 Church Street
The UI Obermann Center for Advanced studies is accepting applications for Spring 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...

News

Nouveau recueil d’ostéologie et de myologie : dessiné d’après nature / par Jacques Gamelin

Health Humanities Planning Sessions

We will host two informal planning sessions for University of Iowa faculty and staff who are interested in next April's Health Humanities Working Symposium. (We are having two meetings in order to accommodate schedules.) If you would like to learn more, to participate in the event, or to meet colleagues working across these domains—from medical anthropologists and historians to poets writing about...

Translating Ixtlilxochitl’s Thirteenth Relation

Jennifer New
At the death of an Aztec king, two brothers contest their father’s throne. A civil war ensues and ends with the kingdom divided in two. A number of years later, a Spanish conquistador named Cortés arrives in the area and one brother sends him an offer: I’ll help you if you help me. With the Spaniard’s assistance, the one brother is deposed, while the other not only takes the throne but fights...

Designing the Future

As changes in technology, population, climate, the economy, the organization of knowledge, and other systems gather speed, the need to predict and even to design the future accelerates as does the need to re-envision STEM as STEAM (sciences, technology, engineering, arts-humanities, and medicine). Through 2013-2014, a series of "futurists"—from the arts...
Just Strike by Josh MacPhee

Exuberant Politics: Fall 2013

Exuberant Politics is a yearlong programming initiative examining recent intersections of art and activism around the world. Organized by Exubernaut Collective, a group of faculty, graduate students, and community members, the series enjoys sponsorship from across community and campus, including the Obermann Center.Where have we experienced exuberance in protest and affinity? Grassroots political...

Obermann Afternoons Kicks Off with Talk on Intergenre Crossing

Building on the Obermann Center’s tradition of nurturing interdisciplinary scholarship, the Intergenre Explorations Working Group has brought together faculty engaged in intergenre work. Rather than (or in addition to) crossing disciplines, intergenre work crosses from one mode of research or presentation to another. Synthesizing scholarly and creative modalities, these crossings entail palpable...

Obermann Director Named to National Humanities Alliance Board of Directors

The Obermann Center is pleased to announce that Director Teresa Mangum has been invited to serve on the Board of Directors of the National Humanities Alliance. For over 30 years, the NHA has been the nation’s leading public policy and advocacy organization for the academic and public humanities. This non-partisan advocacy coalition works to advance humanities education and research, preserve...
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Recent Events

Multiple Pathways to Recovery: A Conversation about Addiction Research and Treatment Services promotional image

Multiple Pathways to Recovery: A Conversation about Addiction Research and Treatment Services

Wednesday, February 13, 2019 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Iowa City Public Library
In this Obermann Conversation, three researchers and practitioners will discuss alternative forms of treating alcohol and drug addictions, including effectiveness for various populations. Paul Gilbert conducts research to understand and address alcohol-related disparities. He is particularly interested in the ways that gender, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation shape drinking patterns, risk of alcohol use disorders, and use of treatment services. His current projects include an NIH-funded...
The US / Mexico Border in Context promotional image

The US / Mexico Border in Context

Thursday, December 6, 2018 4:00pm
Iowa City Public Library
Several scholars will help us put current events at the U.S. / Mexico border into perspective. Lina-Maria Murillo (History and GWSS) received her doctorate in Borderlands History at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) in 2016. Currently, she is completing her manuscript titled From Population Control to Reproductive Freedom: Contraception and Race in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. Rene Rocha (Political Science) focuses on policy analysis, including questions such as: How does immigration...
"Humanities for the Public Good" Launch promotional image

"Humanities for the Public Good" Launch

Tuesday, November 13, 2018 4:30pm to 5:30pm
Iowa City Public Library
On November 13 at 4:00 p.m. at the Iowa City Public Library, Teresa Mangum, Director of the UI Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, will share details of a new 4-year program funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, "Humanities for the Public Good: An Integrative, Collaborative, Practice-Based Humanities PhD." The event will feature opening remarks by John Keller, Dean of the Graduate College and Interim Vice President for Research & Economic Development; a talk titled “The Future of the...
A reading by Murata Sayaka and Ginny Tapley Takemori promotional image

A reading by Murata Sayaka and Ginny Tapley Takemori

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Gilmore Hall
The Japan Foundation New York together with International Programs, the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, the Obermann Center, and the Division of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures present a workshop and bilingual reading with Murata Sayaka and Ginny Tapley Takemori on Tuesday, October 30, 2018. Murata Sayaka is one of Japan’s most prominent writers, known for her frank explorations of the role of sex and gender in contemporary society. She received the prestigious Akutagawa Prize...
Murata Sayaka and Ginny Tapley Takemori promotional image

Murata Sayaka and Ginny Tapley Takemori

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 2:00pm to 3:15pm
Phillips Hall
The Japan Foundation New York together with International Programs, the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, the Obermann Center, and the Division of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures present a workshop and bilingual reading with Murata Sayaka and Ginny Tapley Takemori on Tuesday, October 30, 2018. Murata Sayaka is one of Japan’s most prominent writers, known for her frank explorations of the role of sex and gender in contemporary society. She received the prestigious Akutagawa Prize...
Gerrymandering, Voter Registration, and Access to the Ballot—An Obermann Conversation promotional image

Gerrymandering, Voter Registration, and Access to the Ballot—An Obermann Conversation

Thursday, October 25, 2018 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Iowa City Public Library
How is voting restricted in our country in lawful ways? For this Obermann Conversation, political scientist Tracy Osborn, grassroots organizer Sharon Lake and legal advisor Andrew Bribriesco will discuss issues ranging from gerrymandering, Iowa's voter registration law, voter identification, and lack of voting rights for felons.  Tracy Osborn is an associate professor in the UI Department of Political Science and the director of the Politics and Policy Program at the Iowa Public Policy Center...