Upcoming Events
Conflict and Resolution — An Obermann Wide Lens Event
Wednesday, May 6, 2026 4:00pm to 5:30pm
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
Friday, May 8, 2026 5:00pm
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
News
A Wonderful Place to Write
The week after classes finished in the spring, I had the opportunity to participate in the Obermann Center’s End-of-Year Writing Retreat. The retreat offered faculty, staff, and students dedicated time to work on writing projects, which I hoped to spend editing my novel, a climate dystopia that centers on youth empowerment and the feeling of hopelessness that many of us experience as the climate changes despite our many efforts. Upon receiving an email of acceptance to the retreat, I was in class and could barely keep from grinning. However, underneath all that excitement, I felt a flicker of impostor syndrome. I didn’t know anyone in the retreat, and to make it more daunting, I was the only undergraduate student. So, even as I texted my friends and parents, overjoyed that I had been accepted, I was worried that I would be completely out of place.
Rasheedah Liman: Bridging Continents Through Eco-Theatre
This spring, we welcomed—and recently bid a regretful farewell to—Rasheedah Liman, director, playwright, and Professor of Theatre and Performing Arts at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria. Radiating enthusiasm from the moment she arrived, Rasheedah immersed herself in the UI theatre community and in discussions with faculty across the university. Liman is a scholar and practitioner of eco-theatre, a theatrical form that, in her words, "recognizes the potential of theatre to contribute to environmental consciousness, with the goal of harnessing the transformative power of the stage to engage audiences, evoke emotional responses, and promote environmental awareness."
Narrating Pain, Shaping Poetics: Gabriela Román Fuentes Drafts Novel and Play during Obermann Fellowship
This spring, we welcomed Obermann International Fellow Gabriela Román Fuentes, an award-winning Mexican author, to campus. Her research centers on the representation of illness and female bodies in contemporary Latin American literature. “I am interested in the way diseases are depicted and how authors address pain and intimacy in their writing, as well as how bodies and illnesses have shaped their work,” Fuentes explains. “I regard illness and female bodies not only as mere topics, but also as a structural device and/or a maker of their Poetics.” This research is the foundation for two of Fuentes’s new creative projects, a novel about a woman suffering from an autoimmune disease and a play about hysteria.
Learn about Listening at Obermann’s May 8 Research Blitz
This year’s Wide Lens event, Obermann’s annual celebration of research on campus, will center the theme of listening. The May 8 event at the Voxman Music Building will bring together researchers from science, social sciences, the humanities, and the arts to investigate what it means to listen deeply and thoughtfully.
“Listening attentively is crucial to much of what we do as scholars, researchers, and practitioners,” says Luis Martin-Estudillo, Director of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies. “It requires will and skill, and the six colleagues presenting on their work are fantastic at both, each one from a very different disciplinary platform.”
Eleanor Ball Lands Faculty Position at UNI!
Congratulations to Obermann Communications Assistant Eleanor Ball, who has secured two extraordinary library positions for the coming year! In May, Eleanor will graduate from the UI with a Master of Library & Information Science degree and will begin remote work as a Junior Fellow with the Library of Congress Center for Learning, Literacy, and Engagement. As part of the Center’s Literary Initiatives team, which develops literary programming and administers literary ambassadorships, Eleanor will help to increase the visibility and accessibility of programs like the National Book Festival, promote awareness of the Library’s resources and services, and share with the public a diverse range of established and new literary voices. Then, in August, she’ll begin a three-year term with the University of Northern Iowa as Assistant Professor of Instruction & Information Literacy and Liaison Librarian, where she’ll liaise with the library and academic departments across campus, as well as teach information literacy classes.
Rurality to be Focus of March 2026 Obermann Symposium
We’re pleased to announce the 2025-26 Obermann Symposium, “Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research,” co-directed by Daria Fisher Page, Brian R. Farrell, and Ryan T. Sakoda from the UI College of Law. “Cultivating Rurality” will take a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary look at the subject of rurality through the lenses of law, medicine, education, sustainability, business, social science, and the arts by connecting faculty members and others at the University of Iowa who are already engaged in rural research and teaching, as well as scholars, community leaders, and professionals who work with rural populations and in rural spaces.
