The 2019 Obermann Humanities Symposium, Misfitting: Disability Broadly Considered, focused on disability as a universal human experience, considering the pervasive (though often unnoticed) influence of disability on and in the performing, visual, and literary arts, in philosophy and religion, in political and economic life, and in everyday language.

Co-Directors

• Tricia Zebrowski (Communication Sciences & Disorders, CLAS)
• Douglas Baynton (History, CLAS)

Graduate Assistants

• Hope Gerlach (Communication Sciences & Disorders, CLAS)
• Corey Hickner-Johnson (English, CLAS)

Visiting Speakers

• Nina G., comedienne and advocate/educator around issues of stuttering and dyslexia
• Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, English, Emory University
• Michele Friedner, Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago
• Margaret Price, English, Ohio State University
• Sami Schalk, Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison
• Joseph Straus, Music, City University of New York

“I want to say directly to you something that I said to a lot of people after my visit to Iowa—I enjoyed meeting you and your students and colleagues SO MUCH—really more than I can say….  Thank you for that experience.”

Margaret Price

Media Clown

• Daniel Fine (Dance, CLAS; Public Digital Arts Cluster)
• Shannon Harvey (Backstage Academy, UK)
• Paul Kalina (Theatre Arts, CLAS)

This group spent four weeks researching how to integrate the entertainment industry’s newest digital media technologies with century-old analogue clown routines and wrote an application to the Prague Quadrennial, to which they were accepted and at which they performed in June 2019.

Capturing the Experiences of Rural Latinx High School Students through Photovoice and Digital Storytelling: An Interdisciplinary Approach

• Gerta Bardhoshi (Counselor Education)
• Leslie Ann Locke (Education Policy & Leadership)
• Jeremy Swanston (Art & Art History, CLAS)

This group analyzed and wrote about the community-based participatory research project they had done with high school students in Muscatine, Iowa, the previous spring. Swanston created graphic collages of the students’ photographs and words. The team met with educators and policymakers.

Distinguishing High-Crime Neighborhoods from Low-Crime Neighborhoods: A Spatial Examination Integrating a Diversity of Social and Ecological Factors

• Caglar Koylu (Geographical & Sustainability Sciences, CLAS)
• James Wo (Sociology, CLAS)

This pair worked to identify the characteristics of high and low crime areas in Los Angeles neighborhoods, and to generate predictive models of crime that account for neighborhood characteristics driven from a variety of metrics including demographic, land use, and social tie characteristics of neighborhoods.

Fall 2018

Mark Berg (Sociology, CLAS)

• Undertook research on the pathways which contribute to childhood stressors that can have profound effects on later-life health

Roxanna Curto (French & Italian, CLAS)

• Worked on a book project, Sporting Identities: Global Sports and National Cultures in French and Francophone Literature

Eric Gidal (English, CLAS)

• Composed and submitted a chapter, “Scottish Poetry and Ecology,” that was accepted for inclusion in The International Companion to Eighteenth-Century Scottish Literature, forthcoming in 2020
• Completed work on an article, co-authored with Michael Gavin, University of South Carolina, “Infrastructural Semantics: Postal Directories and Statistical Accounts in Scotland, 1790-1845,” conditionally accepted for publication in the International Journal of Geographical Information Science
• Designed a new course, ENGL 1500: “Introduction to Environmental Literature,”  part of the UI Sustainability Certificate

Tammy Nyden (Philosophy, Grinnell College, Digital Bridges Fellow)

• Collaborated with Grinnell College librarians and a student aide on “Digital Stories for Social Justice Collection,” including transcribing and entering meta-data for 25 Mothers on the Frontline interviews
• Organized and facilitated a 2-day workshop, including training interviewers and developing a curriculum

Thomas Oates (American Studies, CLAS)

• Worked on a book project, Crossover: A Cultural History of Playground Basketball, that offers a cultural history of how playground basketball was commodified in various ways in the late 20th and early 21st centuries
• Wrote and submitted an article to the Sociology of Sport Journal: “‘Where I’m From’: Jay-Z’s ‘Hip Hop Cosmopolitanism,’ Basketball, and the Neoliberal Politics of Urban Space”
• With a graduate student colleague, co-authored the article “‘Sport is Argument’: Polarization, Racial Tension, and the Televised Sport Debate Format,” which examines the history and development of debate programs on ESPN and which will appear in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues

Nathan Platte (School of Music, CLAS)

• Researched a new book project, Sounds of Music: Listening to the Films of Robert Wise, which included visiting several archives and research libraries
• Presented a paper at the meeting of the American Musicological Society
• Wrote a book review for the Journal of the Society for American Music

Samuel Rebelsky (Computer Science, Grinnell College, Digital Bridges Fellow)

• Designed a new curriculum for his introductory computer science course, Functional Problem-Solving, as a way to make computer science more accessible and attractive to a broader population of students. His Spring 2019 into course focused on the digital humanities.
• Began compiling a computer science textbook aimed at digital humanities–themed intro courses

Spring 2019

Mariola Espinosa (History and Global Health Studies, CLAS)

• Worked on book manuscript, Fighting Fever in the Caribbean: Medicine and Empire, 1650–1902
• Attended a workshop sponsored by the Journal of Social History at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University to begin incorporating a visualization about cross-communication regarding racial immunities to yellow fever into a historical argument 

Elizabeth Heineman (History, CLAS)

• Drafted and revised a book proposal for Children, Transported
• Researched the U.S.-based chapters of the book
• Supervised undergraduate RAs who were transcribing oral history interviews

Jason Radley (Psychological & Brain Sciences, CLAS)

• Investigated the clinical literature to identify links between his findings on neural pathways in the brain and human brain imaging data
• Worked on a manuscript for publication

Jenna Supp-Montgomerie (Religious Studies and Communication Studies, CLAS)

• Worked on a book, Fault Lines, which traces the involvement of religion in the the creation and definition of networks

Summer 2019

Bjorn Anderson, Associate Professor, School of Art and Art History (CLAS)

• Book title: Negotiating Identity in Nabataean Arabia. This manuscript examines the intersections of cultural identity in the kingdom of Nabataea, centered at Petra in southern Jordan.
• Reviewers: Andrew Smith, Columbian College of Arts & Sciences; Raybun Taylor, University of Texas at Austin; Katina Lillios, UI Anthropology; Brenda Longfellow, UI Art & Art History

E. Cram, Assistant Professor, Communication Studies (CLAS)

• Book title: Violent Inheritance and the Legacy of Sexuality Modernity in the Rocky Mountain West. This manuscript examines spaces and performances of memory in/of western lands to interpret the ongoing legacy of sexual modernity in shaping cultures of violence in the Rocky Mountain region.
• Reviewers: Gregory Seigworth, Millersville University; Dana Luciano, Rutgers University; Kembrew McLeod, UI Communications Studies; Naomi Greyser, UI GWSS, American Studies, and English

This was such a wonderful experience and I know that my book manuscript will be all the better before sending it off to the press later in the year. There are so few opportunities for this kind of feedback in the pre-tenure book writing process, and I am very grateful.

E. Cram, Communication Studies

After doing this two years in a row, I think Book Ends is one of the most exciting and valuable things that has been launched by Obermann, from a career development perspective.

Kembrew McLeod, Communication Studies

March 7, 2019: Mentoring with Diverse Humanities Careers in Mind—ImaginePhD Workshop for UI Faculty, Graduate Students, and Staff, led by Jen Teitle (Graduate College) and UI graduate students Brady Krien (English, CLAS) and Aiden Bettine (History, CLAS)

March 8, 2019: National Experiments in Career Diversity: Humanities for the Public Good Working Symposium — An all-day symposium that featured 12 visiting speakers: 

• Maureen McCarthy, Council of Graduate Schools
• Edward Balleisen, Duke University
• Stacy Hartman, PublicsLab, City University of New York and former director, Connected Academics, Modern Language Association
• Jenna Lay, Lehigh University
• Beth Boehm, University of Louisville
• Molly McCarthy, Humanities Institute, University of California–Davis
• Ryan McBride, English Department and Center for Public Service and Director, Graduate Program in Community Engaged Scholarship, Tulane University
• Kathryn Temple, English Department and P.I., Mellon-funded Connected Academics, Georgetown University
• David Nugent, Anthropology, and Co-P.I., Luce Foundation-funded Global Skills: New Rubrics, New Structures Project, Emory University
• Jason Puskar, English Department and P.I. NEH NextGen Planning Grant, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
• Glenn Wright, Graduate School Programs Office and Co-P.I. NEH NextGen Planning Grant, Syracuse University
• Kelly Anne Brown, UC-wide Humanities Research Institute, University of California–Irvine
• Maria LaMonaca Wisdom, Graduate Student Advising and Engagement in the Humanities, Duke University

May 17, 2019: How to Stop Giving Graduate Students Bad Advice—A Mentoring Workshop, led by Bruce Burgett and Miriam Bartha (University of Washington-Bothell)

“Something else I really appreciated about the [Mentoring Graduate Students] workshop was the cooperation between not only grad students but also faculty at different career stages. As a junior faculty member, it was inspiring for me to see Full Professors and an Associate Dean participating actively and looking to others for advice and alternate perspectives. More incorporation of this mix of faculty in general in workshops and events would be really great.”

Becky Gonzalez (Spanish and Portuguese, CLAS)

In 2018–19, the Obermann Center hosted the following Working Groups with directors listed:

• Archives & Social Justice — Lindsay Kistler Mattock (School of Library & Information Science, Graduate College)
• Circulating Cultures — Elke Heckner (German, CLAS) and Julie Hochstrasser (Art & Art History, CLAS)
• Comparative Ethnic Studies — Deborah Whaley (African American Studies and American Studies, CLAS)
• Contemporary Literary & Film Theory — Kathleen Newman (Cinematic Arts and Spanish & Portuguese, CLAS)
• Imagination & Desire in a Bayou Landscape: The Story of Cabeza de Vaca — John Rapson (Music, CLAS) and Amber Brian (Spanish & Portuguese, CLAS)
• Islamic Manuscripts — Paul Dilley (Religious Studies and Classics, CLAS) and India Johnson (Center for the Book, Graduate College)
• Latina/o/x Studies — Darrel Wanzer-Serrano (Communication Studies and Latina/o Studies, CLAS), Rene Rocha (Political Science and Latina/o Studies, CLAS), and Ariana Ruiz (Spanish & Portuguese, CLAS)
• Modes & Models of Facilitation — David Supp-Montgomerie (Communication Studies, CLAS) and Kristy Hartsgrove-Mooers (Theatre Arts, CLAS)
• Performance Studies — Jennifer Buckley (English, CLAS) and Kim Marra (Theatre Arts, CLAS)
• Personalization Algorithms & Bias in Social Media — Tim Havens (Communication Studies, CLAS) and M. Zubair Shafiq (Computer Science, CLAS)
• Place-Based Inclusion — Megan Gilster (School of Social Work, CLAS)
• Scholarship of Public Engagement — Carolyn Colvin (College of Education)
• Systems of Writing & Notation — Sabine Gölz (German, CLAS)
• Translation in the Humanities — Aron Aji (Division of World Languages, CLAS) and Morten Schlütter (Religious Studies, CLAS)
• UI Liberal Arts Beyond Bars College in Prison Program — Heather Erwin (School of Library & Information Science, Graduate College) and Kathrina Litchfield (Center for Human Rights)

Highlights

• The Comparative Ethnic Studies group launched a new digital journal, Addressing the Crisis: The Stuart Hall Project.
• The Latino Studies group prepared for the 2019–20 Sawyer Seminar, Imagining Latinidades, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
• Members of the Modes & Models of Facilitation group attended learning retreats in rural Minnesota, hosted by the Center for Courage & Renewal, and Chicago, Illinois, hosted by Sojourn Theatre.
• Peformance Studies hosted a lunchtime discussion at Hancher with Lisa Schlesinger and her collaborators on the multimedia theatre piece Iphigenia Point Blank: The Story of the First Refugee.
• Members of Translation in the Humanities spent the spring semester dedicated to the topic of “retranslation,” reading essays from speakers of the March 2019 UI symposium of the same name.

This year, we hosted seven Obermann Conversations at the Iowa City Public Library. Audiences ranged from undergraduate students to retired community members and represented a wonderful mix of interests.

Scoring the Screen: The Power of Music in Film, April 17, 2019 — Rebecca Fons, programming director of FilmScene, led cinema and music scholars Corey Creekmur and Nathan Platte, and local filmmaker Kaitlyn Busbee in conversation about how music is used in films ranging from Psycho to recent Marvel films.

Local Disabilities Initiatives, March 27, 2019 — Leaders from local organizations shared their work and issues that are pertinent to the Iowa City area. Speakers were Tammy Nyden, Johnson County Children’s Coalition; Michael Hoenig, UI Center for Disabilities & Development; Janet Schlapkohl, Combined Efforts; Sujit Singh, PATV; and Mary Helen Kennerly, Seen & Heard.

Multiple Pathways to Recovery: A Conversation about Addiction Research and Treatment Services, February 13, 2019 — Obermann Center Advisory Board member and College of Public Health faculty member Paul Gilbert spoke with Marvin Hain of the Coralville VA Outpatient Clinic and Steve Steine, a a Certified Alcohol Drug Counselor, about current approaches to alcohol addiction treatment.

The U.S. / Mexico Border in Context, December 6, 2018 — With questions about events at the border in the headlines, we organized this “pop-up” conversation featuring two people who had recently visited the border, Kristy Nabhan-Warren, Religious Studies, and local attorney Yolanda Rivera. Lina-Maria Murillo (History and GWSS) and Rene Rocha (Political Science) provided historical context.

Photographing the Latina/o Experience in Iowa, November 7, 2018 — A team of Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grant scholars, Gerta Bardhoshi, Jeremy Swanston, and Leslie Anne Locke, shared the photo-centered participatory research they are doing in Muscatine, IA, alongside artist Miriam Alarcón Avila’s “Luchadores Immigrants in Iowa” project.

Gerrymandering, Voter Registration, and Access to the Ballot, October 25, 2018 — Political scientist Tracy Osborn, grassroots organizer Sharon Lake, and president and legal advisor for the Iowa chapter of League of United Latin American Citizens, Andrew Bribriesco, discussed Iowa’s voter registration law, voter identification, gerrymandering, and lack of voting rights for felons.

Exploring Women in Sports and Title IX’s Legacy, September 25, 2018 — Diane Williams, a former Obermann Graduate Fellow and American Studies PhD candidate, spoke about Title IX’s history and the current way it is being enacted, along with local coach and lifelong athlete Megan Oesting.

This year’s Institute was co-led by Jennifer New and Teresa Mangum of the Obermann Center, with a day focused on research and engagement led by Jennifer Kayle (Dance, CLAS) and Steve Warren (History and American Studies, CLAS) and a day focused on engaged teaching led by Carolyn Colvin (Language, Literature, & Culture, College of Education) and Rachel Williams (GWSS and Art & Art History, CLAS), with assistance from Senior Fellow Lisa Covington (Interdisciplinary PhD).  

2019 Obermann Graduate Fellows

• Melissa Airy (Art & Art History, CLAS)
• Lance Bennett, Communication Studies (CLAS)
• Hannah Bonner (Cinematic Arts, CLAS)
• Laura Brown (Philosophy, CLAS)
• Victoria Burns (English, CLAS)
• Jeremy Dietmeier (Psychological & Quantitative Foundations, College of Education)
• Sonia Farmer (Center for the Book, Graduate College)
• Samuel Jambrović (Linguistics, CLAS)
• Lindsay Jarratt (Educational Policy & Leadership Studies, College of Education)
• Alex Lange (Higher Education & Student Affairs, College of Education)
• Milad Mohebali (Higher Education & Student Affairs, College of Education)
• Hossain Mohiuddin (School of Urban & Regional Planning, Graduate College)
• Nicole Oehmen (Sociology, CLAS)
• Micaela Terronez (School of Library & Information Science, Graduate College)
• Andrew Tubbs (School of Music, CLAS)

Elements of my new Community-Centered Problem Solving and Design course for graduate students are inspired by the various activities/workshops/discussions I have been involved with at the Obermann Center. The students are working on 6 projects, with varied levels of community engagement, with a range of local, state, and international community partners.

Craig Just (Civil & Environmental Engineering)

The Obermann Center supported 26 events this year, including visiting scholars’ talks, student-led conferences, and performances by faculty. The following are highlights of events and guests that we helped to support in 2018–2019:

• Disorganized/De-organized/Reorganized: Midwest Labor and Working Class History Colloquium 2018  — This annual event that was started more than two decades ago by students of longtime Obermann scholar Shelton Stromquist featured a keynote address by Rosemary Feurer (Northern Illinois University), panels of graduate students and independent scholars, and a roundtable of community activists and local labor organizers. (May 26, 2018) 

• An Elegy for Mary Turner — Performed at the Englert Theatre, this collaboration between Christopher-Rasheem McMillan, Rachel Marie-Crane Williams, and Dawn Harbor explored the horrible story of the unpunished murder of Mary Turner, who was pregnant, and several other African American citizens in South Georgia in 1918.

• A Conversation with South African Performance Artist Tony Miyambo — The South African performer best known for his solo performance Kafka’s Ape, an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s “A Report to an Academy” about a primate’s struggle to overcome the confines of captivity, spoke with students and faculty. (February 2019)

• Public-Facing Scholarship: A Symposium on Provocative Research, Pedagogy, and Academic Freedom — This symposium gathered administrators, faculty, and graduate students from across the UI to discuss the climate currently informing academic life, and to share skills and resources for scholars engaged in public-facing research and pedagogy. (March 2019)

• The Future of Politics in the U.S. — A thoughtful discussion of politics in the United States and the future of the Democratic and Republican parties from left, right, and analytical perspectives, hosted by the UI Public Policy Center and featuring Melissa Ryan of Ctrl Alt-Right Delete, Chris Buskirk of American Greatness, and Tamara Keith of NPR. (March 2019)

• Crash Dance: There Are No Accidents — A collaboration between Daniel McGehee, National Advanced Driving Simulator, and Christopher-Rasheem McMillan, Dance, the performance investigated the “parameters and rules” that engineers use for designing automated cars and applied those concepts to dance-making through the use of “choreographic thinking.” The dance involved engineering students in every aspect of the performance, including set construction, lighting, music, and research visits. (April 2019) 

• Travel Is Home: Travel and Landscape in Japanese Literature, Art, and Culture — During this two-day conference hosted by the UI Japanese Program, international scholars examined instances of travel in Japanese literature, art, and culture in all of its forms, from pilgrimage, official duties, and tourism, to military strategy, emigration, evacuation, exile, and refuge. (April 2019)

• Going Home — This three-part conversation hosted by the Stanley Museum of Art examined the past, the present, and the future of dwelling in Iowa City. (Spring 2019)

• Women’s March, Vanguard Voices Series — This four-film series by women filmmakers told the stories of female experiences from South Dakota to South Africa, featuring Obermann-sponsored scholars in talkbacks. (March 2019)

 2018–19 Donors to the Obermann Center

Thank you to the following faculty, staff, emeritus faculty, and community friends who have recognized the value of the Obermann Center’s work and our unique role at the University of Iowa. Your gifts make our work not only possible but more creative and further-reaching.

• Robert Brennan
• Kenneth and Amy Brown
• Jonathan Carlson
• Carolyn Colvin
• Corey Creekmur and Teresa Mangum
• David Cunning and Naomi Greyser
• Anny Curtius
• Kathleen Diffley and Jude Heaney
• Virginia Dominguez and Jane Desmond
• Leslie and Tim Finer
• Ed and Patricia Folsom
• Bernd Gasch
• Carolyn and John Hartley
• Elizabeth Heineman
• Lyell Henry and Gretchen Holt
• Charles and Rebecca Hickman
• Juan Hourcade and Silvia Quezada
• Lindsay Jarratt and J.C. Luxton
• Cornelia and Michael Lang
• Johna Leddy
• Jeffrey and Tracy Liebermann
• David and Sheryl Lohman
• James and Patricia Longstaff
• Peter Manning and Susan Scheckel
• Edith Parker and David Cohen
• David Redlawsk and Aletia Morgan
• Ann and David Ricketts
• Raymond and Patricia Riezman
• Trina Roberts
• John and Trudy Rosazza
• Hutha Sayre
• Frank Salomon
• Kurt Anstricher and Jane Van Voorhis
• Leslie Schwalm and Dors Stomoen
• Catherine Stewart and David Strass
• Cameron Thies

The ongoing programs and vision of the Center is made possible from many friends and supporters, including:

The 2018-19 Obermann Advisory Board for thoughtful advice

• Ali Hasan (Philosophy, CLAS)
• Paul Gilbert (College of Public Health)
• Paul Gowder (College of Law)
• Naomi Greyser (GWSS, English, and American Studies, CLAS)
• Kristy Nabhan-Warren (Religious Studies, CLAS)
• Tyler Priest (History, CLAS)
• Joyce Tsai (Stanley Museum of Art and School of Art & Art History, CLAS)
• Ann Ricketts (Office of Vice President for Research)
• Darrel Wanzer-Serrano (Communication Studies, CLAS)

Colleagues in the Office of the Vice President of Research, including interim Vice President John Keller; Assistant Vice President Ann Ricketts; the communications staff of Steve Pradarelli, Leslie Revaux, and Modei Akyea; and Senior Human Resources specialist Wendy Loney, for extending our expertise beyond our small internal staff.

UI Facilities Management, Building & Landscape Services, and Custodial Services—especially Rick Dunbar, Roberto Jimenez, Jim Heick, and Dave Miller—who keep our home safe, attractive, and comfortable.

Flo Velterean at UI Mail Services for keeping us in daily contact with the world.

Hunter Gott at ITS for keeping our computers alive and up-to-date.

Collaborators beyond the University who assist us with venues, especially staff members of the Iowa City Public Library and Merge Co-Working Space.