October 2017
Deadlines
Events

News & Achievements
Against Amnesia: Archives, Evidence, and Social Justice 

2018 Provost's Global Forum, Obermann Humanities Symposium, and Joel Barkan Lecture, March 1-3

We often picture archives as rare documents and artifacts--precious and too often unseen collections that preserve our history. But increasingly, concerned citizens, as well as professionals, find themselves desperately grasping the present--tweets, websites, sounds, smells, blood, and bodies--before it vanishes or is furtively swept away. Archives expose past actions that buttress our current crises and hand us tools to dismantle barriers to justice. In this symposium and linked events, practicing archivists, engaged scholars, and interdisciplinary artists will share projects from guerrilla archiving of climate data to mining corporate records for evidence of organized violence. Join us for three days of lectures, panels, film screenings, and exhibits.

Speakers include Trudy Huskamp Peterson, who has  worked with police archives in Guatemala, training the staff in archival processes; William Pretzer, Senior Curator for History at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of African American History and Culture; Bethany Wiggin, one of the lead scientists in international "guerrilla archiving" of federal climate change data; and William Morrison, award-winning filmmaker famous for the mining of old film archives. 
Contemporary Refugees and Mythical Characters Collide 
Artistic trio produce film opera

"We don't collaborate, we collide!" declares Irina Patkanian as she sits down for a conversation with fellow artists Lisa Schlesinger and Marion Schoevaert to discuss their Iphigenia Project and its culminating piece, Iphigenia at Lesvos: Story of a Refugee, a film opera. The project has been unfolding for several years and reflects not only current world events, but the three women's process-oriented working styles. In July, they commandeered the Obermann Center's attic to edit film, write, and storyboard as part of an Interdisciplinary Research Grant. 
Get It Done !
New Obermann series focuses on efficient and elegant solutions to scholarly work

The Obermann Center hosts dozens of events every year, ranging from one-hour guest lectures to three-day symposia. We've become adept at many of the aspects of successful scholarly work that don't get taught in graduate school, namely marketing, planning, and budgeting.

In this new lunchtime series, we'll share some of our tools and invite collaborators from campus to share theirs. This fall's Bring-Your-Own-Lunch noontime talks feature:

  • Oct. 3, Publicizing Events, with Jennifer New, Associate Director of the Obermann Center
  • Nov. 2, Publish or Perish, with Ranjit Arab, Senior Aquisitions Editor of the University of Iowa Press

This series will be held in the Obermann Center library and will not be recorded. No reservations are needed.
Gabrielle Foreman to Lecture and Lead Workshop
"Colored Conventions and the Long History of Black Activism: Digital Organizing and Collective Recovery" 

Gabrielle Foreman, the founding faculty director of the   Colored Conventions Project and the  Ned B. Allen Professor of English and Professor of History and Black American Studies at the University of Delaware, will give a public lecture on November 6 and lead a digital humanities workshop the following day. Her visit is sponsored by the Digital Bridges for Humanistic Inquiry grant, a collaboration between the University of Iowa and Grinnell College that is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The workshop is titled "Diversity and Digital Pedagogy." 
Coming Up...
   From Our Archives (2014)



"Usually, clinicians try to teach people with Alzheimer's, traumatic brain injury, and other kinds of memory impairment through speech, not gesture. But our theory predicts that adding gesture should increase what people learn."

Cook, who has worked more with children, notes that their findings could help learners who need it most, such as students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. All of the practical applications of this research underlines how tightly connected the mind and body are; "They're in constant cross talk with each other," says Duff. Just like the two researchers.

From an article about the connection between gesture and memory, a 2012 Interdisciplinary Research Grant project by Melissa Duff (Communication Science & Disorders, CLAS) and Susan Wagner Cook (Psychological and Brain Sciences, CLAS).