Humanities Symposium

  • These multidisciplinary symposia bring together public figures, scholars, and artists to curate conversations relevant to contemporary events, cutting edge research, and/or social and political movements. German Iowa & the Global Midwest

Opportunity to Explore an Important Topic in the Humanities

The purpose of the Obermann Humanities Symposium is to explore an important humanities topic that highlights UI scholars and scholarship. The proposed symposium may be interdisciplinary or involve the efforts of scholars from a single department, involve few or many participants, and use any format that produces a lively exchange of ideas. The symposium should include both UI and visiting participants. Some sessions must be open to all UI faculty members, staff, and students.

Recent symposia have explored the role of the humanities in understanding and communicating the new age known as the Anthropocene, celebrating and forming a cohesive vision for the study of Latinos in the Midwest, and an examination of Don Quixote as one of literature's most famous exemplars of parody and plagiarism. 

To learn more about the 2016 Obermann-International Programs Humanities Symposium, German Iowa & the Global Midwest, please visit the external website:  http://germansiniowa.com/

Required Items

Applications are due the second Tuesday in October.

  • Send a letter of introduction regarding your symposium topic: including its relevance to a particular field or fields; potential for sustained impact through publication or other means of sharing knowledge beyond the immediate event; and ideas for engaging with the community.
  • Include a CV: for each applying director. We encourage but do not require that one director is a senior faculty member. 
Don Quixote Chinese edition

Don Quixote in 140 Characters

Can one of the world's most iconic books be boiled down to a Tweetable 140 characters? Don Quixote was parodied or plagiarized, depending on how you look at it, before Cervantes could even write the...

Scenes from Anthropocene Symposium

Several keynote lectures from the 2014-15 Obermann Humanities Symposium, Energy Cultures in the Age of the Anthropocene were filmed and are now available on the Obermann's Youtube channel. Lonnie...