Upcoming Events

Conflict and Resolution — An Obermann Wide Lens Event promotional image

Conflict and Resolution — An Obermann Wide Lens Event

Wednesday, May 6, 2026 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Iowa Memorial Union (IMU)

In a world shaped by tension, disagreement, and change, conflict surrounds us, from moments of personal friction to struggles within communities and across nations. It surfaces in our institutions, our relationships, and the stories we tell about ourselves and others. How do conflicts take shape and persist? How are they influenced by power, perspective, and history? Can conflict be generative? What forms might resolution take? How do we begin that process?

This Wide Lens event brings together...

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants promotional image

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants

Friday, May 8, 2026 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 ten 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

Graduate students: Note that the Graduate College offers Small Grants for the...

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Upcoming Application Deadlines

Upcoming Application Deadlines

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants promotional image

Application Deadline: Small Important Project Grants

Friday, May 8, 2026 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 ten 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

Graduate students: Note that the Graduate College offers Small Grants for the...

News

Old, rural public library with wooden door

Training Librarians to Preserve Community Memory

Jenna Hammerich
Over the past two decades, say Micah Bateman and Lindsay Mattock, recipients of a 2021 Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grant, library and information science (LIS) graduate programs have privileged information science, data science, and computer science—at several universities even merging with computer science departments—over human- and community-centered practices central to the mission of library and archival sciences. One such practice involves the management of community memory records—everything from genealogical documents to newspaper archives to oral histories. Bateman and Mattock note that at small and rural libraries, these records often go “unmanaged and underused, and reflect only the narratives of majority or dominant populations” because the librarians working with those collections have been largely neglected by LIS training programs that privilege “big data” paradigms.
HWW logo

Apply for the Summer '23 Humanities Without Walls Predoctoral Career Diversity Workshop

Launched in 2015 as an initiative of the Humanities Without Walls (HWW) consortium, this annual workshop welcomes 30 participants each summer from higher education institutions across the United States. HWW Summer Workshop Fellows work in a variety of academic disciplines. They are scholars and practitioners who bring experience in community building, museum curation, filmmaking, radio programming, social media, project management, research, writing, and teaching....
Sharon Yam and Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz

A Project Postponed: Scholars Take Interdisciplinary Grant Project on the Road

Jennifer New
When the pandemic postponed Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz (Communication Studies and GWSS, University of Iowa) and Shui-yin Sharon Yam's (Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies, University of Kentucky) Obermann residency for their Interdisciplinary Research Grant project last summer, they decided to postpone their work until they could meet in person. Though the Center remained closed to faculty this...
John Rapson sitting at the piano

John Rapson: Looking Back at a Generous Collaborator

Jennifer New
In the summer of 2014, it wasn't uncommon to find two faculty members padding around the Obermann Center in bare feet as they dashed from their upstairs offices to the downstairs library to watch movies. While it appeared to be a scholarly form of summer camp, John Rapson (School of Music) and Paul Kalina (Theatre) were deep in research as they broke down how music and movement interacted in old...
Virtual Reality Screenshot

Using Virtual Reality to Train Math Teachers

Jenna Hammerich
Most children in the U.S. struggle to learn mathematics, with 50 to 75% of students scoring below proficient on achievement tests in grades 4 through 12. Children with disabilities such as autism tend to fare even worse. Clearly, math teachers must be equipped to educate students who require varying levels of support—but, for the most part, they aren’t. Logistical issues inherent in conventional...
Dominic Dongilli at his internship

Summer Interns at the Halfway Mark: A growing tomato, a gift from Brokaw, and nudity in the archives

Jennifer New
It is around the halfway point of so many projects when the work is most difficult. The newness has worn off; the end is still out of reach, but close enough to give us an uneasy reminder of how much is yet to be completed. This is the experience of the ten UI graduate students who are at the midway point of their Humanities for the Public Good (HPG) internships. For eight weeks, they are working...
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Recent Events

Local Disabilities Initiatives: An Obermann Conversation promotional image

Local Disabilities Initiatives: An Obermann Conversation

Wednesday, March 27, 2019 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Iowa City Public Library

In this Obermann Conversation, we’ll hear from activists representing various organizations about current projects that support, amplify, and advocate for people with disabilities. Tammy Nyden gives an overview of the work of the Johnson County Children’s Colation, a project of our local NAMI; Michael Hoenig shares the disability training offered to UI health sciences students; Andrew Tubbs describes the work of Combined Efforts’ multi-arts projects; Sujit Singh will talk about a local...

Commitment to Internationalization Lecture Series promotional image

Commitment to Internationalization Lecture Series

Monday, March 11, 2019 4:30pm
University Capitol Centre

Philip Altbach is the fifth speaker in the Commitment to Internationalization lecture series. His talk, "The Peril and Promise of Internationalization in the Era of Trump, Brexit, and Global Competition," continues the conversation about the UI's vision and strategic themes for campus internationalization.

RSVP online.

Philip G. Altbach is Research Professor and Founding Director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College, where from 1994 to 2015 he was the Monan...

National Experiments in Career Diversity: A Day-long Obermann Working Symposium promotional image

National Experiments in Career Diversity: A Day-long Obermann Working Symposium

Friday, March 8, 2019 (all day)
Iowa City Public Library

Across the country, leaders of PhD programs in the humanities face a conundrum. How can a department honor the subjects, methods, and practices of their disciplines while also preparing graduates for diverse careers?

To inspire our thinking, we have invited directors of some of the most imaginative programs across the country for an Obermann Working Symposium as part of the Andrew W. Mellon–funded Humanities for the Public Good initiative. The daylong program will be held Friday, March 8 at the...

Facilitate a Better Gathering — a GET IT DONE! lunchtime workshop promotional image

Facilitate a Better Gathering — a GET IT DONE! lunchtime workshop

Friday, March 1, 2019 12:00pm to 1:00pm
111 Church Street

How can you break out of the meeting mold of working diligently through an agenda? How can a class start to feel more like a community? How can we invite everyone to participate?

Borrowing from their readings in books that focus on creating community change, such as In the Heart of Democracy by Parker Palmer and Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown, several members of the Obermann Working Group "Modes and Models of Facilitation" will demonstrate several tools and methods for creating more...

Darwin Day 2019 (pt 1) promotional image

Darwin Day 2019 (pt 1)

Friday, February 22, 2019 (all day)
Biology Building East

Iowa City Darwin Day is a grand celebration of science and its many contributions to humanity! As in previous years, this year we welcome a slate of world-renowned scientists who will share their research in a series of professional seminars and public talks over two days. 

All events are free and open to the public.

DAY 1: Friday, February 22, Kollros Auditorium, Biology Building East

2:30 pm   Reception 3:00 pm  "Health and Survival in the Context of Medieval Mortality Crises." Sharon...
Darwin Day 2019 (pt 2) promotional image

Darwin Day 2019 (pt 2)

Friday, February 22, 2019 (all day)
University of Iowa Museum of Natural History

Iowa City Darwin Day is a grand celebration of science and its many contributions to humanity! As in previous years, this year we welcome a slate of world-renowned scientists who will share their research in a series of professional seminars and public talks over two days. 

All events are free and open to the public.

DAY 2: Saturday, February 23 Macbride Hall Auditorium

  9:00 am   Coffee and pastries   9:30 am  “Odd Animal Eyes: Insights into Evolution and Biotechnology." Jeanne Serb  10...