News & Events

Upcoming Events & Deadlines

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)

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

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

Humanities Without Walls Externship Program Fosters Career Diversity, Community Collaboration

Eleanor Ball

At some point, every student pursuing a graduate degree in the humanities has been asked, “So you're going to be a professor?” Humanities PhDs and MAs are often seen as hyperspecialized degrees useful only in the realm of academia—but in fact, the analytical and communication skills, as well as the broad understanding of culture attained through high-level study of the humanities, sets students up for success in a variety of careers, especially in the nonprofit sector. As globalization and rapid technological advancements are transforming the job market and accelerating its pace of change, it’s essential that graduate students be prepared to apply their skills in unexpected ways. University faculty, however, are not typically trained to guide these students toward meaningful, productive careers outside of academia.

Obermann Center Invites International Applicants for Residential Fellows Program

Eleanor Ball

The Obermann Center is thrilled to announce that it is expanding its residential fellowship program to accept international researchers and artists. Fellowships offer dedicated space, time, and funding for scholars and artists based outside of the United States to develop collaborations and pursue independent work at the University of Iowa. Up to eight international fellowships will be granted every academic year, and fellows will receive a $2,000 stipend, office space at the Obermann Center, access to University of Iowa libraries, and other benefits.

Global connections: How international faculty shape Iowa’s future

On September 26, 2024, International Programs hosted a webinar focused on international faculty success in international scholarship and creative work as a part of the Cultivating Success: A Global Faculty Initiative series. Obermann Center director Luis Martín-Estudillo joined a distinguished panel of UI faculty experts to offer valuable insights into navigating the complexities of academia as an international faculty member at Iowa.

Introducing Counterpoint, the Obermann Center's Newest Series

Eleanor Ball

This October, the Obermann Center is thrilled to present the inaugural event in our new annual public conversation series, Counterpoint. These events will highlight a University of Iowa scholar with a long career of making critical contributions to their field, placing them in dialogue across the disciplines with another scholar from a different yet complementary field. 

Sorting Through Scholarship

Eleanor Ball

Three months ago, I stepped into the Obermann Center’s library for the first time. My task was simple, if sizeable: I needed to organize the ~600 volumes in the collection by the end of the summer. As a student in Iowa’s School of Library & Information Science, I was excited for my first solo library project. I’ve been interested in academic librarianship, scholarly communications, and research support for a long time. However, I knew I would have to approach the work strategically and manage my time well in order to succeed. Our goal was to transform the library into a showcase for the works of Obermann scholars. But we also own many books that are unrelated to Obermann, and all of our books were intermingled without regard for subject, date, or author. After about thirty minutes of pacing up and down the library on my first day, I decided I was going to take every book off the shelf.

Buckley and Bakopolous working on the script

Lights, Camera, Action!

Eleanor Ball

During their Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grant (IDRG) in summer 2024, screenwriter Dean Bakopoulos (Cinematic Arts) and drama scholar Jennifer Buckley (English & Theatre Arts) wrote the pilot for a new historical TV miniseries: Anton & Olga. The show, which Bakopoulos and Buckley plan to pitch to producers early next year, follows revolutionary playwright Anton Chekhov, actress Olga Knipper, and their colleagues at the newly-established Moscow Arts Theater (MAT) through personal, political, and artistic upheaval at the end of the nineteenth century. By exploring the creative clashes and collaborations that fueled Chekhov and the MAT, Bakopoulos and Buckley aim to reintroduce modern audiences to an important part of theatrical history. “So many of our ideas of what counts as ‘good acting’ come from them [the MAT],” explains Buckley, “especially from their co-founder, Konstantin Stanislavski, whose ‘system’ still gets taught today in acting programs. Our demands for nuance, subtlety, and emotional truth are all founded on their work.”

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Recent Events

Film Screening of Marshawn Lynch: A History - Sports, Power, and Resistance Obermann Arts & Humanities Symposium

Thursday, September 21, 2023 7:30pm to 9:30pm

FilmScene (Chauncey)

The film screening will be followed with a discussion.

Marshawn Lynch: A History is a kaleidoscopic look at newly retired NFL star Marshawn Lynch and his use of silence as a form of protest. Culling more than 700 video clips and placing them in dramatic, rapid, and radical juxtaposition, the film is a powerful political parable about the American media-sports complex and its deep complicity with racial oppression. Learn more about the film here.

This event is a part of the Sports, Power, and...

Dr. André Brock, A Mode of Black Life: Afro-Optimism and the Black Digital, Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor Lecture

Thursday, September 21, 2023 7:00pm to 9:00pm

Iowa Memorial Union (IMU)

What are the possibilities of Black life beyond liberation, resistance, and oppression? This talk draws upon antiblackness, Black indigeneity, libidinal economy, and science and technology studies to offer a compelling alternative: Afro-Optimism, or the manner in which Black folk build resources to thrive, not just survive, using examples from evocations of Black culture and the Black mundane on Twitter.

André L. Brock is an associate professor at the School of Literature, Media, and...

'Just 'Bout That Action, Boss: The Televisual Politics and Pleasures of Marshawn Lynch' Keynote Address - Sports, Power, and Resistance Obermann Arts & Humanities Symposium

Thursday, September 21, 2023 6:30pm to 7:30pm

FilmScene (Chauncey)

How can the history of activism in sports help us understand the dynamics shaping conflicts today? How might labor relations in sport be imagined differently? How does the structure of sporting entertainment provide opportunities and obstacles to activism, and how can activists navigate these challenges?

As fans flock to sports arenas to cheer for their favorite teams, these spaces are simultaneously important societal battlegrounds. From acts of political protest by players to legislative...

Remnants: Embodied Archives of the Armenian Genocide

Thursday, September 21, 2023 5:30pm

Schaeffer Hall

Join us for a talk by Dr. Elyse Semerdjian, a social historian of the Ottoman Empire whose research focuses on the experiences of women and the empire's Armenian subjects. She has authored “Off the Straight Path”: Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo (Syracuse University Press, 2008) and Remnants: Embodied Archives of the Armenian Genocide (Stanford University Press, 2023) as well as several articles on gender, Ottoman Armenians, urban history, and law in the Ottoman Empire. She has...

Fall Application Deadline: Book Ends Book Completion Workshop (2023–24)

Thursday, September 21, 2023 5:00pm

Co-sponsored by the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and the Office of the Vice President for Research, Books Ends—Obermann/OVPR 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 in turning promising manuscripts into important, field-changing, published books.

Applications for upcoming Book Ends workshops are due June 7, 2023 and Sept. 21, 2023.

UI Special Collections Open House - Sports, Power, and Resistance Obermann Arts & Humanities Symposium

Thursday, September 21, 2023 3:00pm to 4:30pm

University of Iowa Main Library

This open house will display sports-related materials from the University of Iowa Libraries' Special Collections and the Iowa Women's Archive.

This event is a part of the Sports, Power, and Resistance: Legacies and Futures Obermann Arts and Humanities Symposium.

Free and open to all.

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