2023-24
Sports, Power, and Resistance: Legacies and Futures
Co-directors: Thomas Oates, Travis Vogan
2022-23
Frequências: Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Cinema and the Black Diaspora
Co-directors: Christopher Harris, Janaína Oliveira, Cristiane Lira
2020-21
What Can Museums Become?
Co-directors: Jennifer Buckley, Joyce Tsai
Obermann Special Topics Seminar: What Can Museums Become? — Spring 2020
2019-20
Misfitting: Disability Broadly Considered
Co-directors: Douglas Baynton, Tricia Zebrowski
Obermann Special Topics Seminar: Misfitting: Disability Broadly Considered — Spring 2019
2017-18
Against Amnesia: Archives, Evidence, & Social Justice
Director: Teresa Mangum
Obermann Special Topics Seminar: Archives, Power, and Social Justice — Spring 2018
2016-17
German Iowa & the Global Midwest, 2016-17
Co-directors: Glenn Ehrstine, H. Glenn Penny, Lisa Heineman
Obermann Special Topics Seminar: A Century of German Immigration to Iowa: 1848–1948 — Fall 2016
2015-16
Don Quixote in the Age of Electronic Reproduction
Co-directors: Ana M. Rodríguez-Rodríguez, Denise Filios
Obermann Special Topics Seminar: Parody, Plagiarism, Patrimony: Don Quixote in the Age of Electronic Reproduction — Fall 2015
2014-15
Energy Cultures in the Age of the Anthropocene
Co-directors: Tyler Priest, Barbara Eckstein, Bradley Cramer
Obermann Special Topics Seminars: Energy Humanities and the Anthropocene — Spring 2015
Readings on the Anthropocene — Spring 2015
2013-14
Affect & Inquiry
Co-directors: Deborah Whaley, Jeff Bennett, Naomi Greyser
Obermann Special Topics Seminar: Affect and Inquiry: Emotion, Embodiment, Empiricism — Fall 2013
2012-13
The Latino Midwest
Co-directors: Claire Fox, Omar Valerio-Jiménez, Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez
Obermann Special Topics Seminar: The Latino Midwest: Interdisciplinary and Transnational Perspectives — Fall 2012
2011
Comics, Creativity, & Culture
Co-directors: Corey Creekmur, Ana Merino, Rachel Williams
Obermann Special Topics Seminar: Comics, Creativity, and Culture: Interdisciplinary and International Perspectives — Fall 2011
2010-11
Causes & Consequences: Global Perspectives on Gender & the History of Slavery
Co-directors: Catherine Komisaruk, Leslie Schwalm, Elke Elisabeth Stockreiter
2009-10
Private Scholars & Public Scholarship
Director: Teresa Mangum
2007-08
From Bourgeoisie to Boojie: Performances of the Black Middle Class
Co-directors: Vershawn Ashanti Young, Bridget Harris Tsemo
2006-07
Indecency & Obscenity
Director: Loren Glass
2005-06
Whitman Making Books/Books Making Whitman
Director: Ed Folsom
2004-05
Collage as Cultural Practice
Co-directors: Rudolf Kuenzli, Kembrew McLeod
2003-04
Feminism & Film History
Co-directors: Lauren Rabinovitz, Kathleen Newman
2002-03
The Cultured Body: African Fashion & Body Arts
Co-directors: Victoria L. Rovine, Sarah Adams
2000-01
Fleeting Objects, Enduring Communities: New Work in the Study of Material Culture
Co-directors: Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, Mark Peterson
1999-00
Planning as Storytelling: Sustaining America’s Cities
Co-directors: Barbara Eckstein, James Throgmorton
1998-99
Civic Education in Classical Athens & Humanities Education Today: Isocrates Between Sophists & Philosophers
1997-98
The Seashore Symposium: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Musicality
1996-97
Language, Communities, States, & Global Culture: The Discourse of Identity in the Americas
1995-96
Memory in Context: Occupation & Empire in France & the Francophone World
1994-95
Refiguring the Human Sciences: New Practices of Inquiry
1994-95
Futurism & the Avant-garde
1991-92
Genes & Human Self-Knowledge: Historical & Philosophical Reflections in Modern Genetics
1990-91
Islands in Time: Identity & Culture in the Caribbean
1989-90
Meanings in Texts & Actions: The Questions of Paul Ricoeur
1986-87
The Lyrical Arts
1985-86
The Arts & the Event: Aesthetics & Social Transaction
1984-85
Exploring the Concept of the Mind
1983-84
The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences: Languages and Argument in Scholarship and Public Affairs