Upcoming Events

Application Deadline: Editorial Consultations with Sara Jo Cohen, Obermann Editor-in-Residence
Monday, October 13, 2025 5:00pm
UI faculty, students, and staff are invited to apply for a 20-30–minute editorial consultation with the Obermann Center's 2025 Editor-in-Residence, Sara Jo Cohen, at the Obermann Center library on Monday, November 3, 2025.Potential discussion topics could include finding an editor, pitching a book, writing a book proposal, how the publishing process works, etc. Applications are due October 13 by 5:00 p.m.Learn more and apply at https://obermann.uiowa.edu/obermann-editor-residence.Cohen is...

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson
Wednesday, October 15, 2025 7:00pm to 8:15pm
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson will be giving a lecture on her career at NATO and in Congress.

EFC Lecture | Mozart, Le Nozze di Figaro: A closer look at a masterwork - Stephen Swanson
Thursday, October 16, 2025 4:00pm
A brief review of the collaborations between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte, along with a summary of the opera and plays by Pierre-Augustin Beaumarchais on which the “Figaro” operas are based.

Registration Deadline: Graduate Student Breakfast & Talk with Sara Jo Cohen, Obermann Editor-in-Residence
Tuesday, October 21, 2025 5:00pm
UI graduate students at all stages are invited to join Editor Cohen for breakfast and a talk focused on turning an article, thesis, or dissertation into a book. The session will take place on Tuesday, November 4, from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. at the Obermann Center library.Register by October 21, 5:00 p.m. Learn more and register at https://obermann.uiowa.edu/obermann-editor-residence.Cohen is Editorial Director at University of Michigan Press, where she acquires titles in music, theater and...

RSVP Deadline: Undergraduate Career Session with Sara Jo Cohen, Obermann Editor-in-Residence
Friday, October 31, 2025 5:00pm
Interested in a career in publishing? In this session on Tuesday November 4 at 12pm at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, Sara Jo Cohen, Editorial Director at University of Michigan Press, will reflect on her own career path, beginning with her undergraduate experience and the choices that helped shape her trajectory into academic publishing. She’ll discuss how she gained relevant experience, navigated early roles in the industry, and built a career in academic publishing. This is an...

"Behind the Book: The Labor of Acquisitions Editing" — Lecture by Sara Jo Cohen
Tuesday, November 4, 2025 5:00pm
Publishing a scholarly book is not a solitary act of authorship, but a collaborative process in which scholars work with a team of editors. Scholars don’t just submit manuscripts; they engage in sustained dialogue with editors who help to shape, refine, and position their work. Far from being gatekeepers, acquisition editors are collaborators, advocates, and stewards of knowledge. Their work is especially critical as they align the intellectual ambitions of scholars with the practical demands of...

Planning and Writing Successful Grant Proposals in the Creative Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities Seminar
Wednesday, December 3, 2025 8:30am to 12:30pm
This seminar will cover fundamental concepts of proposal planning and writing for the Arts and Humanities faculty backed by concrete tips and operational strategies that support planning and longer-term sustainability.Planning and Writing Successful Grant Proposals in the Creative Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities SeminarThe Research Development Office is hosting an in person grant writing seminar, Planning and Writing Successful Grant Proposals in the Creative Arts, Social Sciences, and...

A Conversation with UI President Barbara Wilson
Thursday, December 11, 2025 1:00pm to 2:00pm
Dr. Barbara J. Wilson is the 22nd president of the University of Iowa. She earned a BA in journalism and MA and PhD degrees in communication arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She came to Iowa having served as the executive vice president/vice president for academic affairs of the University of Illinois System.Prior to that, she served in several administrative positions, including interim chancellor, at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she was a member of the...

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium
Thursday, March 26 to Friday, March 27, 2026 (all day)
Directed by Brian R. Farrell, Daria Fisher Page, and Ryan T. Sakoda (UI College of Law), Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research will bring together scholars, community leaders, and professionals who work with rural populations and in rural spaces. During the symposium, attendees will be invited to collaborate in theorizing rurality, share how it impacts their work, examine how rurality is represented and celebrated, and problem-solve challenges faced by rural communities...

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium
Friday, March 27, 2026 (all day)
Directed by Brian R. Farrell, Daria Fisher Page, and Ryan T. Sakoda (UI College of Law), Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research will bring together scholars, community leaders, and professionals who work with rural populations and in rural spaces. During the symposium, attendees will be invited to collaborate in theorizing rurality, share how it impacts their work, examine how rurality is represented and celebrated, and problem-solve challenges faced by rural communities...
Note: Videos of past lectures may be available on the EFC Lecture Series page.
Past Events

EFC Lecture | Medical Directives: End-of-Life Planning and Decision Making - Len Sandler, JD
Thursday, September 18, 2025 4:00pm
This presentation will explore the legal, medical, practical, and human dimensions of end-of-life planning and decision making

EFC Lecture Series: From Language History to History as it Happens: A Sociolinguist in the Migration Crisis - Mercedes Niño-Murcia
Thursday, April 17, 2025 4:00pm
Professor Emerita Niño-Murcia will discuss big and small ways in which language politics generate and perpetuate North American inequalities.

EFC Lecture: Mary Trachsel - Going Feral: Animal Studies Scholarship in Retirement and Retrospect
Thursday, February 20, 2025 4:00pm
This lecture traces Professor Trachsel's studies on cross-species communication from analyses of ape language research in the early 2000’s to investigation of other interspecies language types, such as horse whispering and the telepathy professed by animal communicators. Her current research on human-wild animal relationships has entailed wolf-tracking in Yellowstone, a “women and wolves” workshop in the Boundary Waters, observation of feral horses out west, and visits to wildlife "encounter"...
EFC Lecture: Why Do We Want to Believe in Cross-Species Utopias? - Teresa Mangum, PhD
Thursday, November 14, 2024 4:00pm
The internet mews, barks, growls, and hisses with alleged evidence of cross-species attachment. These stories — from Genesis to Victorian animal painter Edwin Landseer’s narrative paintings to the latest videos and memes — entice audiences with the promise that we can bridge and bond across species difference. But they also document what it costs animals for humans to be near them.
~ Sponsored by the Emeritus Faculty Council and the Office of the Provost ~
EFC Lecture: VR Research in Three Parts: My Life in Virtual Reality - Joe Kearney
Thursday, October 17, 2024 4:00pm
This talk will give an overview of three research initiatives that use VR technology. First, a series of studies that used large screen pedestrian and bicycling simulators to examine how two people coordinate their decisions and actions when crossing a stream of traffic. The studies reveal the powerful influence that others have on how we make consequential decisions in performing routine but potentially dangerous activities. Second, a series of studies looking at how mobile technology can help...

EFC Lecture: Edwin Stone - Dream No Small Dreams
Thursday, September 12, 2024 4:00pm to 5:30pm
This lecture will detail our 38-year journey toward the restoration of vision for people blinded by inherited retinal disease.
Edwin M. Stone, MD, PhD, is Professor of Ophthalmology. Director of the Iowa Institute for Vision Research, and the Seamans-Hauser Chair of Molecular Ophthalmology.
~ Sponsored by the Emeritus Faculty Council and the Office of the Provost ~

Language and Health: Language Abilities and Children’s Well-Being
Thursday, April 25, 2024 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Bruce Tomblin, PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
Language is often viewed as one of the signal attributes of humans. It is a universal property of humans that is acquired easily during early childhood with no formal instruction. During this time some children are more adept at language learning than others. These individual differences in language development have the potential of affecting children’s well-being. This talk will provide an overview of a...

The Search for Race: Civil War Medicine and Science
Thursday, March 21, 2024 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Leslie uses the social and cultural history of Civil War medicine and science to probe the question of how and why anti-Black racism survived the destruction of slavery. Leslie's talk will describe how white Northerners—the U.S. Sanitary Commission and Army medical personnel—conducted wartime research aimed at proving Black medical and biological inferiority. She argues that this research not only led to the mistreatment of Black soldiers and civilians, it also promoted the notion of white...