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...

Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop promotional image

Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop

Thursday, May 31, 2029 (all day)
111 Church Street

Books Ends—Obermann 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 turn promising manuscripts into important, field-changing, published books.

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

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News

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...
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Obermann Part of Major Collaborative Mellon Award

Obermann Center Member of Major Collaborative Mellon Grant The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $3,000,000 for an innovative two-year project, “Humanities Without Walls,” that will include faculty and graduate students at the University of Iowa. In addition to the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, the collaboration includes fourteen humanities institutes in the Midwest and beyond. By...

The Heart of the Chicago Humanities Summit

The following reflections on the recent Chicago Humanities Summit were written by H. Glenn Penny (History, CLAS), who was one of several University of Iowa faculty members in attendance. On January 9, 2014 the Chicago Humanities Festival (CHF) joined forces with the Modern Language Association (MLA), the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS), and local humanities centers along with the...

Micromagnets: On the Path To Greater Energy Efficiency

Johna Leddy (Chemistry, CLAS) is very enthusiastic about the possibility of improving electrochemical systems such as batteries and fuel cells to provide energy and fuels with greater efficiency. “We might be able to build a low temperature fuel cell that runs on alcohol,” says Leddy, who was a Fall 2013 Obermann Fellow-in-Residence. “It could make us less dependent on foreign oil and processes...

Recent Events

Economic Development as Social Justice — An Obermann Conversation promotional image

Economic Development as Social Justice — An Obermann Conversation

Thursday, December 2, 2021 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Virtual

This summer, a new Story Map of Black-owned businesses in Johnson County was created. It connects users to a rich and ever-growing directory of businesses and entrepreneurs in the eastern Iowa corridor and challenges us to understand the connection between economic opportunities and social justice. Our speakers will help us understand historic barriers faced by BIPOC people interested in starting a business, and why tearing down these barriers matters to all of us.

Speakers:

Daria Fisher...
Understanding Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: a method for facilitating useful feedback sessions on creative work promotional image

Understanding Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: a method for facilitating useful feedback sessions on creative work

Thursday, December 2, 2021 11:00am to 12:30pm
Virtual

Vincent Thomas of Towson University worked with Liz Lerman for years as part of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and has an intimate and multi-dimensional understanding of how to apply the CRP across disciplines. In this talk, Professor Thomas will introduce the process, guide us through its application, and answer questions about how to adapt the process to all forms of creative work.

Free and open to all. Join us on Zoom.

This event is hosted by the Department of Theatre Arts, with support from...

Misinformation and Media Literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa promotional image

Misinformation and Media Literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa

Friday, November 19, 2021 10:00am to 11:15am
Virtual

Join us for a panel presentation and discussion about teaching media literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa and a theory of misinformation literacy.

Panelists:

Peter Cunliffe-Jones Chido Onumah Cornia Pretorius

Peter Cunliffe-Jones was a journalist for AFP news agency for 25 years from 1990 – in western Europe, the Balkans, Nigeria and Hong Kong, as chief editor Asia-Pacific. In 2012 he founded Africa's first fact-checking organization, Africa Check in South Africa. He is a visiting researcher...

Working with a Literary Agent: An Obermann Get It Done workshop promotional image

Working with a Literary Agent: An Obermann Get It Done workshop

Monday, November 15, 2021 12:00pm
Virtual

Featuring Meenakshi Gigi Durham (UI Ombuds, GWSS, and Journalism & Mass Communication) and Carrie Schuettpelz (School of Planning and Public Affairs).

Increasingly, academic authors are seeking ways to publish books that will have appeal beyond their disciplinary audience. Whether it’s a matter of landing a book contract with a non-academic press or finding avenues toward broader readership, such as through magazines and podcasts, having a literary agent can be very helpful. In this GET IT...

What Do We Mean by Research Now?— Perspectives from Academic Podcasters in the US and Canada promotional image

What Do We Mean by Research Now?— Perspectives from Academic Podcasters in the US and Canada

Friday, November 12, 2021 12:30pm to 1:30pm
Virtual

The UI Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and Humanities for the Public Good are delighted to welcome academic podcasters in the US and Canada for the third round of “What Do We Mean by Research Now?” With the explosion of podcasts across disciplines in the past decade, humanities researchers are finding that podcasts and podcasting can encourage new forms of collaboration, knowledge, and public engagement. But as with any new form of scholarship, podcasts pose challenges for evaluation and...

FilmScene at the Chauncey with Hector Abad Faciolince promotional image

FilmScene at the Chauncey with Hector Abad Faciolince

Thursday, November 4, 2021 7:15pm to 9:15pm
FilmScene (Chauncey)

FREE ADMISSION

"El olvido que seremos/Memories of my father," directed by Oscar-winner Fernando Trueba, is the story of Hector Abad's family and childhood in Medlin, Colombia.  The assassination of his father, a beloved human rights activist, shook the nation.  Presented in Spanish with English subtitles; after the film, Abad will answer questions in Spanish and English.

This event is made possible by Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese...