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

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...

Teaching the Latino Midwest

The culture and history of Latinos in the Midwest is an increasingly significant topic for college courses in Latino/a Studies. Numbers alone indicate that this regional emphasis is critical. Between 2000 and 2010, the Latino population increased by 44% across the country and by more than 73% in many Midwestern states. Yet, there is no teachable anthology for undergraduate classes.Claire Fox...

Interdisciplinary Research Grant Groups in Residence for July

Three groups of scholars are currently in residence at the Obermann Center throughout July as part of the Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grants (IDRG). These grants foster collaborative scholarship by offering recipients with intensive time, as well as space, in which to exchange new ideas leading to invention, creation, and publication. Past IDRG recipients have created a music therapy app...

Recent Events

Black Curators' Roundtable promotional image

Black Curators' Roundtable

Monday, October 28, 2019 7:00pm to 9:00pm
Iowa City Public Library

This event marks the end of the exhibition Anonymous Donor, guest-curated by Anaïs Duplan and shown at the Figge Art Museum as a part of the Stanley Museum of Art collections-sharing program, Legacies for Iowa, sponsored by the Matthew Bucksbaum Family. Join Duplan and curators Gia Hamilton, Eileen Isagon Skyers, and Gee Wesley in a moderated conversation about their practice working in multiple exhibit, artistic, and community contexts.

Black Curators' Roundtable is organized by the Center for...

Latina/o/x Migration (Sawyer Seminar Symposium) promotional image

Latina/o/x Migration (Sawyer Seminar Symposium)

Friday, October 25, 2019 (all day)
MERGE

In this one-day symposium -- part of our yearlong Mellon Foundation-funded Sawyer Seminar on “Imagining Latinidades: Articulations of National Belonging” -- three invited speakers will explore questions related to migration and national belonging. Each speaker will deliver a plenary address, which will be followed by Q&A.

Speakers include the following: Karma Chávez is Associate Professor and Chair of Mexican American & Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a rhetorical...

The Burden of Gun Violence: Trends and Policy Solutions promotional image

The Burden of Gun Violence: Trends and Policy Solutions

Wednesday, October 23, 2019 7:00pm to 9:00pm

This event brings together a panel of experts to discuss the burden of American gun violence and the potential for evidenced-based public policy solutions.

The PPC’s Crime & Justice Policy research program, directed by Mark Berg, is hosting this panel as part of the Run Up to the 2020 Caucus – a series designed to examine different policy topics that will be discussed during the campaign.

Topics will include:

Lethal and non-lethal gun violence trends in the United States Gender and gun...
Conversation: A Vital Tool for Mending Our Democracy promotional image

Conversation: A Vital Tool for Mending Our Democracy

Wednesday, October 23, 2019 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Iowa City Public Library

Many of us long for complex conversations with a greater range of people, and yet we aren't entirely sure how to access such conversations. In this Obermann Conversation, we convene three people -- Lore Baur, Ben Hassman, and Sherry Watt -- who actively organize and facilitate conversations that might be perceived as difficult. Each of them will share some of the skills involved in holding a mutually respectful and beneficial conversation, as well as some of the power that this relatively simple...

Latino/a/x Identity, Popular Culture, & Arts Education: A Visit From Poet José Olivarez promotional image

Latino/a/x Identity, Popular Culture, & Arts Education: A Visit From Poet José Olivarez

Tuesday, October 22, 2019 (all day)

Poetry Workshop with José Olivarez
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
12:30-1:30pm
UCC 2750
Lunch will be provided | Limited to first 20 registered UIowa students
Sign-up by October 12 at tinyurl.com/JOlivarez

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Poetry Reading with José Olivarez
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
6pm
Latino Native American Cultural Center

More information on acclaimed-poet and author of Citizen Illegal (2018) at:

www...

Media Clown: The Analog Clown Enters Digital Space promotional image

Media Clown: The Analog Clown Enters Digital Space

Monday, October 14, 2019 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Iowa City Public Library

Paul Kalina (Theatre Arts, CLAS) and Daniel Fine (Digital Arts Cluster) share their project "Media Clown," which premiered in June at the Prague Quadrennial. The event is the largest festival of stage and theatrical design in the world. The project includes two motion-capture suits and a holographic effect screen, all of which aid in Kalina's clown character (think Keaton, not Bozo) "entering" an iPad and becoming part of the digital world.

The two began planning the project during a Summer...