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Points-of-view across the disciplines
Each year, the Counterpoint series features the most recent recipient of the Obermann Interdisciplinary Achievement Award, which recognizes a University of Iowa faculty member for fostering collaboration across academic fields and institutional units. The honoree is joined by creative and research collaborators from other disciplines for a public conversation exploring their shared work.
Held in the beautiful Voxman Recital Hall, each event opens with a short artistic program inspired by the theme of the discussion.
Counterpoint events are free and open to all.
Fall 2026
Holding Space: Stories of Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Join us to celebrate the interdisciplinary work of University of Iowa choreographer and assistant professor of dance Stephanie Miracle, recipient of the 2026 Obermann Interdisciplinary Achievement Award.
Miracle will bring together dance, engineering, and the humanities in a new choreographed work featuring dancers performing alongside robots built by the University of Iowa College of Engineering, with narration by Eric Gidal.
A conversation among Miracle, Gidal, and engineering collaborator Deema Totah will follow.
Free and open to all.
Featured speakers
Stephanie Miracle
Eric Gidal
Eric Gidal teaches courses in environmental literary studies, public humanities, and European literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with emphases in media studies, information theory, and environmental history. He also works with graduate students in community-facing projects in public arts and humanities and has collaborated with the Iowa Institute for Hydraulic Research - Hydroscience and Engineering and the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities. His last book, Ossianic Unconformities: Bardic Poetry in the Industrial Age (Virginia UP, 2015), explores a modern quest to locate vestiges of ancient poetry in the landscapes of an industrial world. His more recent publications continue to study the intersections of environmental, literary, and media history over the past 300 years.
Deema Totah
Deema Totah is an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Robotics and Assistive Devices Laboratory (RAD Lab) at the University of Iowa. Her research interests lie in improving the efficacy of assistive devices for customized patient care. Born and raised in Ramallah, Palestine, she received a BS degree from MIT, and an MSE and PhD from the University of Michigan, all in mechanical engineering. Prior to joining the UI in 2021, Totah completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan’s School of Kinesiology. Totah is inspired by multidisciplinary collaborations, including co-designing robots with dancers!
Read more about Stephanie Miracle’s interdisciplinary work:
"Human-Tech Connections"
Learn how Miracle and mechanical engineering professor Deema Totah brought dancers and robots together for Since we have come this far how do we get back?, an interdisciplinary project exploring how human and nonhuman bodies relate through movement. Read the College of Engineering story
“Vulnerability Is Your Friend: Co-Creating Robots with Dancers”
Miracle and Totah extended their dance-robotics collaboration into research presented at the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Atlanta. Learn more from the UI Robotics and Assistive Devices Lab
"This year’s co-stars of the 2024 Dance Gala? Robots."
The Daily Iowan goes behind the scenes of Miracle and Totah’s collaboration, from the development of the robots to their integration into choreography for Dance Gala 2024. Read the Daily Iowan story
Meandering River
This immersive, site-specific project brought together dance, environmental research, engineering, visual art, music, and the humanities to reconsider the Iowa River as a shared, living system. Miracle co-directed the project with Eric Gidal, Liz McTernan, Heather Parrish, and Jenna Supp-Montgomerie. Explore the Meandering River project
Stephanie Miracle: Choreography for Stage
Explore Miracle’s own documentation of Since we have come this far how do we get back?, including the questions about automation, embodiment, and human-machine relationships that shaped the dancer-robot collaboration. Visit Stephanie Miracle’s project archive
"Meandering River: Professor Gidal Collaborates Across Campus"
English professor Eric Gidal reflects on the collaborative process behind Meandering River and the ways scholars and artists from across the university combined research, writing, sound, environmental science, and dance. Read the Department of English story
Stephanie Miracle to Receive Obermann Interdisciplinary Achievement Award
An overview of Miracle’s boundary-crossing creative practice, including her collaborations with engineers, scientists, musicians, and scholars on projects such as Meandering River and Since we have come this far how do we get back? Read the Obermann Center article.
UI professor Stephanie Miracle on the demands and rewards of interdisciplinary work
A thoughtful Q&A with Miracle on the occasion of her receiving the 2026 Obermann Interdisciplinary Achievement Award
Past Counterpoint Events
The Fourth Age of Life: The Challenges of Aging and the Joys of Connecting — An Obermann Counterpoint Event
What does it truly mean to grow and thrive as we age? In this thought-provoking Obermann Counterpoint event, Mercedes Bern-Klug (School of Social Work, CLAS) and Amy Colbert (Tippie College of Business) will explore the diverse ways we live, adapt, and flourish in our later years, whether we choose to navigate life independently or in a communal care setting. Against the backdrop of a growing loneliness epidemic among older adults, the two will discuss the health and social benefits of nursing...
Counterpoint: The Politics of (International) Writing
How do politics affect what poets or novelists write, and even how they write it? How does literature inform political discourse? What is cultural diplomacy, why is it so important, and what is the UI’s role in promoting it?
For this inaugural event in the Obermann Center’s new Counterpoint public conversation series, Christopher Merrill — poet, nonfiction writer, translator, editor, and director of the UI’s renowned International Writing Program — and Loren Glass, a historian of creative writing...
