Events

"Rural Community-Centered Research: Maternity Care and Why It Matters" — Keynote lecture (in person and virtual) by Katy Kozhimannil, University of Minnesota promotional image

"Rural Community-Centered Research: Maternity Care and Why It Matters" — Keynote lecture (in person and virtual) by Katy Kozhimannil, University of Minnesota

Tuesday, March 24, 2026 7:30am
Virtual

Special Preliminary Event for the Obermann Symposium "Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research."

This lecture, co-sponsored by the UI Carver College of Medicine, is designed for a non-clinical audience and will be open to the public. Katy B. Kozhimannil is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Co-Director of the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center and the University of Minnesota Rural Health Program.

The lecture will take place in Pediatric...

Winifred Tate | Art After the Unspeakable: Reflections on Works by Doris Salcedo and Jeremy Frey promotional image

Winifred Tate | Art After the Unspeakable: Reflections on Works by Doris Salcedo and Jeremy Frey

Tuesday, March 24, 2026 2:30pm to 4:00pm
Stanley Museum of Art

This talk examines mourning and worldmaking through community action and art in the wake of violence, dispossession, and collective loss. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with communities in southern Colombia and rural Maine, Tate considers the intersections, possibilities and limitations of rights activism and art through an exploration of the visual repertoires and material practices of Colombian sculptor Doris Salcedo and Passamaquoddy artist Jeremy Frey. This program is free and open to all...

Rapid Response History: Battles over the American Past promotional image

Rapid Response History: Battles over the American Past

Tuesday, March 24, 2026 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Schaeffer Hall
Rapid Response History
Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium promotional image

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium

Thursday, March 26 to Friday, March 27, 2026 (all day)
Iowa City Public Library

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 from across the U.S., 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 begin to discuss challenges...

"Reimagining the Rural from Idyll to Hinterland: Exhausting Rural Childhoods” — keynote lecture by Esther Pereen, University of Amsterdam promotional image

"Reimagining the Rural from Idyll to Hinterland: Exhausting Rural Childhoods” — keynote lecture by Esther Pereen, University of Amsterdam

Thursday, March 26, 2026 6:00pm to 7:00pm
Stanley Museum of Art

This is a keynote lecture for the 2025-2026 Obermann Symposium: "Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research."

Esther Pereen, University of Amsterdam: "Reimagining the Rural from Idyll to Hinterland: Exhausting Rural Childhoods”

Across the social and cultural realms, the rural is often imagined through idyllic and pastoral genres that allow it to be conceived as a refuge from globalization. Pereen's European Research Council–funded project RURAL IMAGINATIONS, concentrating on...

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium promotional image

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium

Friday, March 27, 2026 (all day)
Iowa City Public Library

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 from across the U.S., 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 begin to discuss challenges...

Culture on Film: Short, Indigenous, Creative (pick 2 or more) - Ida Beam public lecture promotional image

Culture on Film: Short, Indigenous, Creative (pick 2 or more) - Ida Beam public lecture

Tuesday, March 31, 2026 3:30pm to 4:20pm
Becker Communication Studies Building
This talk will offer a quick-start guide for novice filmmakers, illustrated by several Indigenous-made films that showcase the creative energy and power of short-form and do-it-yourself media.
Documentary screening of "Searching for Sequoyah" hosted by Ida Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor Joshua B. Nelson promotional image

Documentary screening of "Searching for Sequoyah" hosted by Ida Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor Joshua B. Nelson

Wednesday, April 1, 2026 6:30pm to 8:30pm
Becker Communication Studies Building
We will hold a screening of the PBS documentary "Searching for Sequoyah (ᎾᏍᎩᏃ ᏍᏏᏉᏯ ᎠᏥᏲᎭ)" with commentary by co-producer, co-writer and host Prof. Joshua B. Nelson, Ida Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor.

"The Southern Immigration Movement: Why It Matters" with Bluford Adams

Thursday, April 2, 2026 2:30pm to 4:00pm
English-Philosophy Building
lecture by Professor Bluford Adams
How Renaissance Scholars and Printers Decided on the Size of Books promotional image

How Renaissance Scholars and Printers Decided on the Size of Books

Thursday, April 2, 2026 5:30pm
Adler Journalism and Mass Communication Building
This lecture by Harvard historian Ann Blair explores how Renaissance scholars and printers determined book size, showing how commercial and cultural factors—and collaborations like those of Erasmus in Basel and Conrad Gessner in Zurich—shaped publishing norms and the production of knowledge in early modern Europe.
Launching and Sustaining a Writing-Enriched Curriculum in the Age of AI promotional image

Launching and Sustaining a Writing-Enriched Curriculum in the Age of AI

Friday, April 3, 2026 10:00am to 11:30am
University Capitol Centre
In this interactive session, Lindsey Harding, University of Georgia, describes how she transitioned a 25-year-old writing-in-the-disciplines program to a writing-enriched curriculum program, now in its third year with eight departments.
History Dept Colloquium: “Seed Scenius and the Long History of Crop Innovation in Latin America” promotional image

History Dept Colloquium: “Seed Scenius and the Long History of Crop Innovation in Latin America”

Friday, April 3, 2026 2:30pm to 4:00pm
Schaeffer Hall
Professor Viridiana Hernández Fernández presents a research paper
Rapid Response History: A Judeo-Christian Tradition? promotional image

Rapid Response History: A Judeo-Christian Tradition?

Tuesday, April 7, 2026 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Schaeffer Hall
Rapid Response History
Book Matters: James Costa and Elizabeth Yale promotional image

Book Matters: James Costa and Elizabeth Yale

Thursday, April 9, 2026 7:00pm to 8:30pm
Prairie Lights Books
Join us for a reading and discussion to celebrate The Descent of Man: An Annotated Edition of Darwin’s Classic Work, annotated by James Costa, professor of biology and executive director of the Highlands Biological Station at Western Carolina University, and Elizabeth Yale, associate professor of history at the University of Iowa.
Samuel Huneke, "I Will Not Abandon You" promotional image

Samuel Huneke, "I Will Not Abandon You"

Friday, April 10, 2026 3:00pm
MacLean Hall
Author and Historian of Modern Europe to speak on his book I Will Not Abandon You.
Rapid Response History: Signs of the Times: Reusing Ancient Symbols in Modern History and Museums promotional image

Rapid Response History: Signs of the Times: Reusing Ancient Symbols in Modern History and Museums

Tuesday, April 14, 2026 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Schaeffer Hall
Rapid Response History
Trivia Night @ the Museum promotional image

Trivia Night @ the Museum

Wednesday, April 15, 2026 6:00pm to 8:00pm
Old Capitol Museum
The very popular Trivia Night @ the Museum inside the historic Senate Chamber at the Old Capitol Museum is back!
Food, Culture, and Memory: Identity, Language, and Pedagogy Across Foodways Symposium promotional image

Food, Culture, and Memory: Identity, Language, and Pedagogy Across Foodways Symposium

Friday, April 17, 2026 9:00am to 4:00pm
University Capitol Centre
Food is more than sustenance; it carries stories, traditions, and memories that shape how communities understand identity and culture.
Rapid Response History: History in Public Places promotional image

Rapid Response History: History in Public Places

Tuesday, April 21, 2026 5:01pm to 6:30pm
Schaeffer Hall
Rapid Response History: History in Public Places
Recycled Runway promotional image

Recycled Runway

Saturday, April 25, 2026 1:00pm to 2:00pm
Old Capitol Museum
The University of Iowa’s Sustainable Events class presents the 4th Annual Recycled Runway at the historic Old Capitol Museum and you’re invited!
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