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...

View more events

Spacer

News

Two Obermann Scholars Awarded Public Engagement Grants

Chuck Connerly, Urban & Regional Planning, Graduate College and co-director of the Obermann Graduate Institute, and Karla McGregor, Communications Sciences & Disorders, CLAS, and a Spring 2011 Obermann Fellow-in-Residence, have received Public Engagement Grants (PEG) via the Office for the Vice President for Research. These competitive awards, which are in their inaugural year, are...

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”...

Recent Events

Get It Done: Working with Hancher in Spring 2021 promotional image

Get It Done: Working with Hancher in Spring 2021

Monday, November 9, 2020 12:30pm
Virtual

If you've ever passed by Hancher and felt a pang of desire to be part of a performance, you're not alone! We have asked our friends at this premier performing arts center to share their spring 2021 programming and to explain how you can continue to connect with arts programming at Hancher virtually—especially for teaching purposes. 

On Monday, November 9, from 12:30-1:30 p.m., Hancher's programming and education staff—Paul Brohan, Micah Ariel James, and Chuy Renteria—will give a snapshot of...

Little Resurrections: Laboring to Find Wonder in Our Work — An Obermann Conversation promotional image

Little Resurrections: Laboring to Find Wonder in Our Work — An Obermann Conversation

Wednesday, October 28, 2020 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Virtual

Join a minister, a dancer, and a religious anthropologist for a conversation about social justice, the body's awe-inspiring movement, and the tension between the mundane and profound qualities of 21st-century labor.  

The past few months have shone an intense light on the demands of different forms of work. Americans are picking lettuce in the midst of nearby forest fires, chasing kindergartners while on Zoom work calls, and caring for COVID patients. Workers deemed "essential" are treated as...

Art and the Pursuit of Social Justice promotional image

Art and the Pursuit of Social Justice

Wednesday, October 14 to Saturday, October 31, 2020 (all day)
Virtual

Starting on October 4th and continuing through the month, Iowa Arts is sponsoring a series of events that bring arts and humanities together to explore a range of timely issues. The initiative, called “Art and the Pursuit of Social Justice,” includes music and theatre productions framed by discussions to place them in a social context. It also features conversations with distinguished faculty and guests about how the arts and humanities can inform medical practice and bring attention to complex...

Obermann Around the Table: Listening to the Past, Sharing Thoughts on the Present, Imagining a More Just Future promotional image

Obermann Around the Table: Listening to the Past, Sharing Thoughts on the Present, Imagining a More Just Future

Sunday, October 11, 2020 4:00pm
Virtual

The Obermann Center for Advanced Studies is launching a new series entitled Obermann Around the Table--in honor of much missed in person conversations in our library. Our hope is that the series will provide a welcoming, nonjudgmental space in which colleagues, neighbors, and new friends can address difficult subjects that impact our communities and reflect on ways to move toward more just and generous communities.

In the first event of the series, we will reflect on the theme Finding Your...

Graduate Institute on Engagement and the Academy - Info Session

Tuesday, October 6, 2020 2:00pm to 3:00pm
Virtual

Learn and ask questions about the 2021 Graduate Institute on Engagement and the Academy. The Obermann Center's Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellows, Dr. Laura Perry and Dr. Ashley Cheyemi McNeil, will lead the virtual session.

If you are interested in applying for the January 2021 Obermann Graduate Institute on Engagement and the Academy, please attend! Note that we are repeating this info session for those who could not attend the September 11 session.

Please register to receive the Zoom...

Pandemic, State & Society Webinar Series promotional image

Pandemic, State & Society Webinar Series

Friday, September 25, 2020 8:00pm to 9:30pm
Virtual

Join International Programs, the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, and the Iowa Global Health Network for a special two-part webinar series "Pandemic, State & Society" (Sept. 18 & 25) bringing together voices from Asia to discuss firsthand experiences with the coronavirus.

Asia was the first place to experience the coronavirus, impose lockdowns, and then emerge from them. It was also the first to experience a resurgence of infection due to the...