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Upcoming Application Deadlines

Upcoming Application Deadlines

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

Civic Science - Beyond the Knowledge Wars

John Spencer, director of "Get Ready Iowa," the 2012 Obermann Summer Seminar, and Harry Boyte, director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship, published this article in the Huffington Post on May 31. An abbreviated version appeared in the Iowa City Press Citizen on June 12. Today, we face multiplying global crises—from economic collapse to global warming to crises in education and...

Civic Science at Center of Summer Seminar

A new kind of research is at the heart of this June’s Obermann Summer Seminar. Based on a model of civic science, the seminar will bring together educators, developmental scientists, policy makers, and parents to consider how to improve school readiness for Iowa’s three- to five-year olds.“We are trying to stay very open to possible outcomes,” says John Spencer, Director of the DeLTA Center and...

Kevin Chamberlain's "Insect" Exhibit Opens

“Insects: A Collection in Multiple Dimensions”—featuring artwork by University of Iowa graduate student Kevin Chamberlain—opens May 3 at 5 p.m. in the UI Pentacrest Museums Gallery for the Arts, Humanities, and Sciences at the Old Capitol Museum.The exhibit includes digital photographs and three-dimensional artistic renderings of specimens from the UI Museum of Natural History’s 100-year-old...

Raquel Baker and Ted Gutsche

Raquel Baker (English, CLAS) and Ted Gutsche (Journalism and Mass Communication, CLAS) met via the Obermann Graduate Institute. Today, the two PhD candidates are using their mutual interests in civic engagement and social justice to create a General Education Literature course that takes students into the local community to find "concealed stories" and share them with a broader audience. One of the...

HASTAC Scholars Organize THATCamp Iowa City

From Friday, March 31 to Sunday, April 1, THATCamp Iowa City took place in The University of Iowa Main Library. THATCamp (The Humanities And Technology Camp) was organized by UI HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory) scholars Melody Dworak (MLIS candidate, Graduate College) and Katherine F. Montgomery (English PhD candidate, CLAS). Following an “unconference”...

stef shuster: Transgender Activist, Academic Pioneer

stef shuster recalls the frustration experienced when filling out the Institutional Review Board (IRB) application to conduct graduate research.“It was very formulaic, and so many of the questions were constructed in a binary way,” says the 29-year-old University of Iowa doctoral student in sociology who is conducting research on transgender communities and identities—and whose name is...

Recent Events

Jewish Stories of Identity and Belonging: In the Shadow of the Inquisition, the US Constitutional Right to Liberty of Conscience promotional image

Jewish Stories of Identity and Belonging: In the Shadow of the Inquisition, the US Constitutional Right to Liberty of Conscience

Wednesday, April 10, 2024 12:00pm to 1:00pm
University Capitol Centre

Part of the series: Jewish Stories of Identity and Belonging: Spain, Portugal, and the Americas

"In the Shadow of the Inquisition: The US Constitutional Right to Liberty of Conscience"

Dr. Isaac Amon
Director of Academic Research, Jewish Heritage Alliance 
Adjunct Professor, Washington university School of Law, St. Louis, Missouri

Sponsors of the series: The Jewish Studies Working Group; The Anne Frank Initiative; International Programs; Obermann Center for Advanced Studies; Center for...

Jewish Stories of Identity and Belonging: Spain, Portugal, and the Americas promotional image

Jewish Stories of Identity and Belonging: Spain, Portugal, and the Americas

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 3:30pm to 5:00pm
Phillips Hall

Join us for a Public Talk:

"The Legacy of Sefarad: (Crypto) Jewish Experiences in Spain and Portugal,” Dr. Isaac Amon, Director of Academic Research, Jewish Heritage Alliance and Adjunct Professor, Washington University School of Law, St. Louis, Missouri "Zamora Sefardí: Jewish Legacy in Zamora, Spain,” Dr. Jeśus Jambrina, Professor of Spanish, Viterbo University, LaCrosse, Wisconsin
 

This is part of the series: "Jewish Stories of Identity and Belonging: Spain, Portugal, and the...

Office of Community Engagement: Engagement Summit promotional image

Office of Community Engagement: Engagement Summit

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 (all day)
University Capitol Centre

The Engagement Summit brings together faculty, staff, students, and community partners to explore and celebrate a year of impactful community engagement work between the University of Iowa and communities across Iowa and beyond.

This daylong event will include sessions and speakers on important topics in community engagement, including community-engaged research, the impact of engagement on communities, creative place-making and improving quality of life in communities, graduate education and...

Jewish Stories of Identity and Belonging: Jewish Studies Certificate Launch promotional image

Jewish Stories of Identity and Belonging: Jewish Studies Certificate Launch

Monday, April 8, 2024 3:30pm to 5:00pm
Old Capitol Museum

Join us to celebrate the University of Iowa's new Jewish Studies Program, featuring remarks by members of the campus community and a discussion of Sephardic history, identity, and citizenship with:

Dr. Isaac Amon
Director of Academic Research, Jewish Heritage Alliance 
Adjunct Professor, Washington university School of Law, St. Louis, Missouri

Dr. Jeśus Jambrina
Professor of Spanish, Viterbo University, LaCrosse, Wisconsin
Founder of the Centro Isaac Campantón

This is part of the series:...

Midwest Graduate Music Consortium Conference 2024

Sunday, April 7, 2024 8:00am to 9:00pm
Virtual

The 28th annual meeting of the Midwest Graduate Music Consortium (MGMC) will be hosted by the University of Iowa on April 6-7, 2024. This conference will feature paper presentations, a new music concert by the University of Iowa New Music Center, and a keynote address by Dr. Eric Saylor, Professor of Musicology at Drake University.

MGMC is a joint venture organized by graduate students from the University of Chicago, the University of Iowa, Northwestern University, and the University of...

Craft Critique Culture Graduate Conference: Black Legacies promotional image

Craft Critique Culture Graduate Conference: Black Legacies

Saturday, April 6, 2024 12:00pm

On April 4–6, 2024, English graduate students are hosting the 23rd annual Craft Critique Culture interdisciplinary graduate conference on the University of Iowa campus. This year’s conference addresses themes of “Black Legacies.” For this conference, “Black Legacies” is, first, a recognition and continued contribution to the history of Black Studies programs in colleges and universities, which emerged in the 1960s and ’70s. “Black Legacies” is also a way to honor and celebrate the power of...