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Upcoming Application Deadlines

Upcoming Application Deadlines

Application Deadline: Summer 2026 Obermann Writing Collective promotional image

Application Deadline: Summer 2026 Obermann Writing Collective

Friday, May 22, 2026 5:00pm
111 Church Street

This program offers accountability to artists, scholars, and researchers working on any kind of writing project (articles, essays, fellowship or grant applications, dissertations, book projects, edited volumes, etc.) who want dedicated time, a cozy space, and a community for the practice of writing.Each group meets once a week for 1.5 hours. Weekly writing sessions include brief check-ins, goal setting, and sustained writing time. All groups are open to everyone in the University of Iowa...

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Spring 2027) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann International Fellowships (Spring 2027)

Friday, September 18, 2026 11:59pm
111 Church Street

The UI Obermann Center for Advanced studies is accepting applications for Spring 2027 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...

Application Deadline: Book Ends, Obermann Book Completion Workshop promotional image

Application Deadline: Book Ends, Obermann Book Completion Workshop

Wednesday, September 23, 2026 5:00pm
Virtual

Books Ends supports University of Iowa faculty from disciplines in which publishing a monograph is required for tenure and promotion. The award is designed to assist UI faculty members with significant research responsibilities turn promising manuscripts into important, field-changing, published books.

Book Ends brings together a panel of senior scholars for a candid, constructive three-hour workshop on a faculty member’s book manuscript. The award provides a $500 honorarium for two external...

Application Deadline: Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grants (Summer 2027) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grants (Summer 2027)

Wednesday, October 7, 2026 5:00pm
111 Church Street

Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grants (IDRG) foster collaborative scholarship and creative work by offering recipients time and space to exchange new ideas leading to invention, creation, and publication. IDRG groups work at the Obermann Center for two weeks, usually in July and/or August. Applicants propose work on a project with colleagues from across the University, across disciplines within their own department, or with colleagues from other parts of the country or the world. Projects...

Application Deadline: Obermann Symposium Directorship (2027–28) promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann Symposium Directorship (2027–28)

Wednesday, October 28, 2026 5:00pm
111 Church Street

Is there a burning topic in your discipline or a topic that cuts across disciplines that we should bring to campus? Is there a format for the conversation that can energize an intellectual community around that topic? That might be the perfect topic for an Obermann Symposium!

In addition to a compelling topic, we invite co-directors to propose national and international speakers who can offer richly diverse perspectives on the symposium theme. We also want to highlight the work of UI and local...

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...

News

Barbara Eckstein

Barbara Eckstein is a Fall 2012 Obermann Fellow-in-Residence and a University of Iowa professor of English. She is also on the faculty of the UI Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research (CGRER) 
and is affiliated with International Programs. She’s previously served as Associate Provost for Academic Administration. Currently, she is in the early phases of an extensive study of the...
old map of world

"Circulating Culture" Working Group Hosts UMass-Amherst Scholar Laura Doyle

The Obermann Center “Circulating Cultures” Working Group will host the upcoming visit by Laura Doyle, Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Doyle, who specializes in questions of transnationalism, modernity, and empire in literary studies, will give a public lecture, “Reading Otherwise: Interdisciplinarity, History, and the Dialectics of Culture,” on Thursday, October...

Genetics - From Frankenstein to the Future

"The era of personalized genomic medicine is fast approaching,” says Richard Smith, Professor of Otolaryngology, Pediatrics, Molecular Physiology, and Biophysics. “Clinicians will provide health care tailored to each person’s genome to inform choices about medications, disease and disease prevention, and surgical risks.” Smith, who is the Co-Director of the University of Iowa Institute of Human...

The Latino Midwest

Latino culture has been helping shape the United States for hundreds of years, even before the U.S. was a country. Though the Latino population in the Midwest is small compared to other areas of the country, it continues to grow, infusing Latino art, literature, and music into the culture of the heartland.The Latino Midwest, the 2012-13 University of Iowa Obermann-International Programs Humanities...

Migration Letters

Alejandro García-Lemos first came to the U.S. from his home in Colombia in order to attend graduate school in 1997. The painter, who now works as an interpreter for immigrants in hospitals and at the courthouse in Columbia, South Carolina, had visited the U.S. many times before finally decided to stay. "You meet someone, life changes," he says with a small laugh. The process of staying has hardly...

Overlap of Gesture and Memory

When Susan Wagner Cook, an assistant professor in Psychology (CLAS) submitted a paper on hand gestures a few years ago, she received feedback from reviewers that her understanding of memory was about twenty years behind. Disappointed, but also knowing that she was unlikely to assimilate two decades of research into her thinking without serious commitment, she tabled the paper. She gave it second...

Recent Events

Next-Generation Dissertations—New Projects for an Engaged Academy promotional image

Next-Generation Dissertations—New Projects for an Engaged Academy

Monday, March 7, 2022 1:00pm to 2:30pm
Virtual

Dissertation reform is an essential thread in the tapestry of reimagining doctoral education. More and more scholars are finding creative ways to share their scholarly research and intellectual insights in dynamic, engaging forms such as graphic novels, mobile games, documentary films, and more, and are having an impact both within and beyond the academy. Join several humanities and social science scholars and the advisors who have supported them to learn more about these projects and why this...

Application Deadline: Mellon Sawyer Seminar Post-Doctoral Scholar promotional image

Application Deadline: Mellon Sawyer Seminar Post-Doctoral Scholar

Friday, March 4, 2022 11:59pm

The Obermann Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Iowa welcomes applications for a full-time, twelve-month Post-Doctoral Scholar to begin on August 15, 2022. The Post-Doctoral Fellowship is for the academic year and includes participation in the 2022-2023 Mellon Sawyer Seminar on “Racial Reckoning and Social Justice through Comics” to be led by Corey Creekmur (Cinematic Arts, English, Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies), Ana Merino (Spanish and Portuguese), and Rachel Williams...

Carl V. Gisolfi Seminar Series: "The Misunderstanding of Exercise for Those with Autism" by David Geslak promotional image

Carl V. Gisolfi Seminar Series: "The Misunderstanding of Exercise for Those with Autism" by David Geslak

Friday, March 4, 2022 2:00pm to 3:30pm
Iowa Bioscience Innovation Facility

Exercise is one of the most underutilized and cost-­effective treatments for individuals with autism. In addition to the health-­related benefits, research shows that exercise can increase attention span, reduce stress, enhance language development and enhance well-being for individuals with autism. David S. Geslak, President and Founder of Exercise Connection, has trained professionals around the world. In this lecture, titled, "The Misunderstanding of Exercise for Those with Autism," he will...

Starting & Sustaining a Writing Group — An Obermann Get It Done Workshop promotional image

Starting & Sustaining a Writing Group — An Obermann Get It Done Workshop

Friday, March 4, 2022 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Virtual

Those of us who write either by compulsion or necessity often yearn for a group of co-creators who will keep us company and hold us accountable. Writing groups seem like the answer to the often lonely work of crafting words. In this informal lunchtime session, Naomi Greyser will provide ideas for how to mindfully start a group and then sustain it—which can be trickier than it seems.

Naomi is the head writing coach at the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity. She is a faculty...

Igniting Change One Wall at a Time — An Obermann Conversation promotional image

Igniting Change One Wall at a Time — An Obermann Conversation

Thursday, March 3, 2022 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Virtual

When two large figures took shape on Burlington Street in Iowa City last summer, passersby had to contend with messages that went beyond the colorful, playful images of other downtown murals. "Weaponize your privilege" reads one of the so-called Oracles of Iowa City. The twin images are part of a long history of public art that challenges viewers and pushes for change, while asking who the "public" is in public art. Hear from artists and scholars involved in this project and other large-scale...

Provost's Global Forum: Teaching Anne Frank - Joel Barkan Memorial Lecture promotional image

Provost's Global Forum: Teaching Anne Frank - Joel Barkan Memorial Lecture

Wednesday, March 2, 2022 5:30pm to 7:00pm
Virtual

February 28 - March 2, 2022, the University of Iowa will host scholars, experts, and researchers from around the world as part of the 2022 Provost’s Global Forum, "Teaching Anne Frank."

With a goal to inspire discussions of global affairs and build relationships between the university and the state of Iowa, this Provost's Global Forum brings together a multi-disciplinary panel of experts from Iowa and across Europe to highlight the educational value and continuing relevance of Anne Frank's...