May 2017
Deadlines

Events

News & Achievements
  • Cori Peek-Asa (Obermann Advisory Board) was awarded the May Brodbeck Distinguished Achievement Award for Faculty.
  • Corey Hickner-Johnson (Obermann Graduate Fellow, '17) received the Jane A. Weiss Memorial Dissertation Scholarship and an Outstanding Teaching Award.
  • Michael Overholt (Obermann Graduate Fellow, '16) was named Director for Upper School Curriculum, St. John's Christian Academy.
  • Noaquia Callahan (Obermann Graduate Fellow, '14) received the Adah Johnson/Otilia Maria Fernandez Scholarship.
  • Thank you to the outgoing members of the Obermann Advisory Board for their faithful service, sound advice, and good humor: H. Glenn Penny (History), Michael Sauder (Sociology), Juan Pablo Hourcade (Computer Science), and Edith Parker (Community & Behavioral Health).

Submit your ideas for next year's Obermann Conversations! Who would you like to hear from in this program that pairs Obermann-related scholars and community thought leaders?
Save the Date & Ready Your Spring Syllabus
Arguing with Archives topic of spring 2018 Obermann Humanities Symposium

Artists, performers, scholars, and archivists will be in Iowa City March 1-3, 2018, to show how crucial archives can be to the quest for social justice--from determined efforts to salvage climate data to respectfully documenting histories of indigenous people in Canada to enacting embodiments of data. We hope this early notice will allow instructors to incorporate the symposium as you plan spring 2018 classes. Look for details on our website later this summer.
Grinnell Fellow-in-Residence discusses book project  


Frequent occurrences in Khrushchev-era Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, so-called "prophylactic chats" are the current fascination of Spring '17 Fellow-in-Residence Edward Cohn, a professor of history at Grinnell College. Cohn specializes in the social and political history of the Soviet Union in the decades after World War II and is currently at work on a book about the KGB's efforts to fight political dissent in the Baltic republics. He is particularly interested in the little-known tactic of  profilaktika, or "prophylactic conversations," used by the KGB in the 1960s and 70s as a cost-saving alternative to arresting low-level political offenders.
 
Erica Damman's Environmental Games
Interdisciplinary PhD student explores how play can help us talk about overwhelming issues

An alumni of the Obermann Graduate Institute, Erica Damman has created three games in addition to writing a traditional dissertation as part of her self-designed degree in Environmental Humanities.  A sculptor by training, she is interested in how structured play and tactile games can be a platform for addressing overwhelming topics such as climate change and species disappearance. "When you sit down to a game," she says, "there's an unconscious message that this won't be dangerous."
 
This Summer at the Obermann Center 

The Obermann Center will host multiple groups this summer, working on projects ranging from an edited anthology to a "film opera." Scholars of philosopher Bertrand Russell will focus on his lectures The Philosophy of Physical Atomism as part of the Obermann Summer Seminar. Two Interdisciplinary Research Grant groups have arts-centered projects, while two others are working on aspects of literacy. Finally, the Andrew W. Mellon-funded Digital Bridges program continues for a third summer with visiting arts and humanities program management guru Leah Nahmias's visit in mid-May and UI/Grinnell collaborative projects throughout the summer.
Coming Up...