News from Obermann Center for Advanced Studies

ISSUE #35 | Fall 2022

Events & Deadlines

The following events are either sponsored or co-sponsored by the Obermann Center or highlight work close to that of our mission.

Dec. 1 - Wide Lens: WATER - interdisciplinary research exchange and conviviality at the Stanley Museum of Art

Dec. 1 - DEADLINE - NEH Public Humanities Projects applications

Dec. 13 - Summer '23 HPG Humanities Labs application info session (virtual)

Jan. 10 & 12 - Winter Institute for Teaching with Writing (virtual) - via the Teaching with Writing Obermann Working Group

Jan. 31 - DEADLINE to apply for the Graz International Summer School at the Seggau Castle in Austria - a unique opportunity for internationally-oriented students from all disciplines. This summer's program will focus on the ways in which conflict, challenge, and change are addressed socially, politically, culturally, and economically, and what this means for states, societies, and religions. Scholarships are available. Please share with your students!

Feb. 1 - DEADLINE to apply for 2023-24 UCLA Clark Library Fellowships for senior and postdoctoral scholars

Feb. 2 - Book Ends info session (virtual)

March 7 - DEADLINE for Summer 2023 HPG Humanities Labs letters of inquiry

2021-22 Obermann

Annual Report

Six important, cross-disciplinary projects illuminate a way forward

The theme of this year’s annual report, “Shining Light on Difficult Questions,” seems a fitting way to mark the transition from the last two years, shadowed by loss and confusion, to the future, and to our renewed commitment to finding a purpose-driven path forward. The work of the faculty, staff, and students who participated in Obermann Center programs last year offers one of the best reminders that though the light of inspiration wavered, it never died.

We’ve deliberately kept the report brief—knowing how busy you are fanning new flames in your own work and life. But we hope you’ll take a moment to celebrate the accomplishments that you helped make possible.

Our deepest gratitude to our outgoing Associate Director Jennifer New and our frequent partner Robyn Hepker for so thoughtfully preparing this beautiful report.

VIEW REPORT

The World Needs Interdisciplinary Teams, and Obermann Needs YOU!

Please support our efforts to fund and connect scholars, artists, & researchers

As you determine the important causes and valuable organizations you’ll donate to at the end of this year, I hope that you will consider giving to the Obermann Center. The resources for supporting research on campus, especially bolstering smaller-scale collaborations and incubating ideas outside the scope of large grants on and off campus, are few. I’m very proud of the ways we help artists, scholars, and researchers catch the flicker of new possibilities in our 30 Working Groups; feel the incandescent thrill of collaborating in summer Interdisciplinary Grants; and blaze the way to finishing books in the Book Ends seminars or drawing together national and international communities in our annual Arts and Humanities Symposia.

Thank you, thank you for your time and energy, which light up the Center, the campus, and the world. And thank you for considering a donation to help your fellow artists, scholars, and researchers do the same.

With warmest good wishes and gratitude,

Teresa Mangum, Obermann Director

SUPPORT THE OBERMANN CENTER

Awards, Accomplishments, & Other Happy News

Brian Ekdale and his colleagues from the Algorithms and Culture Obermann Working Group. published "Trust in Online Search Results During Uncertain Times" in the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media.
Tara Bynum ('21 Book Ends) argues for “Failure’s Gifts” in the latest edition of Public Books.
Kassie Baron (HPG intern) won the People's Choice Award at the UI 3MT finals!
Kristy Nabhan-Warren (Advisory Board) and Kirsten Kumpf Baele (Anne Frank Tree Planting Project) received 2022 CLAS Outstanding Outreach and Public Engagement Awards.
Lisa Heineman (Working Groups) was named a CLAS Collegiate Fellow and received the AICGS/DAAD Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in German and European Studies.
Elizabeth Yale (HPG Advisory Board) and William Reisinger ('20 Fellow-in-Residence) received 2021-22 CLAS Collegiate Teaching Awards, and Reisinger also won the CLAS International Engagement Teaching Award.
Alfred Martin ('21 IDRG) received a CLAS Dean's Scholar Award.
Tori Forbes ('15-16 Grad Institute Advisory Board) received a CLAS Collegiate Scholar award.
John D’Agata ('12 IDRG) was named F. Wendell Miller Professor in the Department of English.
Frederick Skiff ('02 Summer Seminar) was named the Harriet and Harold Brady Chair in Laser Physics.

This Thursday: WATER through a Wide Lens

Cyclones, water clocks, ocean art, & watching the tap, & cleaning up our act

Add to your calendar

We hope to see you at the Stanley Museum of Art TOMORROW (12/1) at 4:00 for the first event in the new Wide Lens series, a rapid-fire presentation program in which researchers, scholars, and artists from across the UI will briefly present their work on a shared topic of interest, and then open the floor to questions and conversation over hors d'oeuvres and drinks.

This Thursday, we'll welcome the following scholars as they discuss water through the lenses of history, culture, music, visual art, and engineering:

Jean-Francoise Charles (Music, CLAS) — "Sounding Water"
Rob Rouphail (History, CLAS)— "The Black Water of the Indian Ocean"
Samantha Zuhlke (Planning and Public Affairs, Graduate College) — "Citizen-Consumers, Drinking Water, and Public Distrust"
Terry Conrad (Art and Art History, CLAS) — "Ocean as Printshop"
Michelle Scherer (Civil & Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering) — "Get the Lead Out of Iowans’ Drinking Water!"

The Wide Lens series is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, the Office of the Vice President for Research, and the Stanley Museum of Art.

Free and open to all. No RSVP necessary.

Apply to Transform a Graduate Seminar to a Humanities Lab

Letters of inquiry due March 7, 2023, by 5:00 p.m.

This year, we’re thrilled that our Mellon Humanities for the Public Good grant is funding four graduate humanities labs that are transforming “on the books” graduate courses in English, Cinematic Arts, Linguistics, and History. Faculty members are reimagining traditional seminars as applied, experiential “labs” that offer graduate students meaningful ways to connect advanced studies in the humanities with both a social challenge and skills valued in multiple career settings. Read about these current and developing courses.

Now, we’re delighted that we can provide funding to develop two additional labs in summer 2023. The $15,000 funding can support a planning team including faculty, staff, graduate students, and/or community partners to work together in summer 2023 to develop the lab. In addition, the host department receives $10,000 to acknowledge their commitment to experimentation and collaboration. The course should be offered in the 2023-24 or 2024-25 academic year. View details and examples of humanities labs across the country, along with a detailed description of the application process.

What is a Humanities Lab?

Like their counterparts in the sciences, humanities labs foreground inquiry, exploration, and collaboration. Often based on the creation or development of a hands on project that addresses a specific and immediate research/social justice issue, humanities labs convene transdisciplinary teams to respond to a hypothesis or problem through collaborative problem- and project-based experiential learning. Teams of faculty, staff, graduate students, undergraduate students, and community partners commit to working together on a wicked problem rich with possibilities for study and problem solving using the subject matter, tools, methods, and dispositions of the humanities. One of the many exciting opportunities afforded by the lab model is aligning humanities subject matter, methodology, and mindsets with contemporary social challenges.

Want to know more?

Review the website links above and/or join Teresa Mangum at a virtual information session on Tuesday, December 13, from 11-12. We’ll schedule a second info session in late January. Please note that this is a two-part application process. A Letter of Inquiry is due by Tuesday, March 7 to obermann-center@uiowa.edu. In the second part of the process, a selection committee will invite the applicants of compelling LOI letters to submit more detailed proposals, which will be due on Tuesday, April 18 after consultation with the HPG team.