4 years • A Re-Imagined Graduate Education • Infinite Collaborations
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Working for the Public Good
with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
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Featured in this Issue: Our Humanities Labs + Fellowships, Postdocs, and Jobs | |
Upcoming Applications and Events | |
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Sep 19 - Humanities in Data Science webinar on how to enter the data science space as a humanities graduate student. Students can register here.
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Sep 22 - Virtual Writing Retreat by the legendary Inkwell for all scholarly writers on the UI campus from 10 am to 4 pm—all are invited but must REGISTER in advance.
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Sep 28 - Obermann 3-Minute Thesis Competition for graduate students in the humanities and related fields. We accept the first 15 students who apply. More information below. Details here. Applications due September 25th.
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Oct 23 - Syracuse University Engaged Humanities Post-Doctoral Fellowship application due. More information below.
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The Applied Humanities Goes to Bondurant, Iowa! | |
Twenty University of Iowa students and faculty traveled to Bondurant last week to kickoff a yearlong partnership between the University of Iowa’s Initiative for Sustainable Communities (IISC) and the city. Located in Polk County and considered part of the Des Moines metropolitan area, Bondurant was competitively selected as one of two IISC site partners for this year; the other is Dubuque. | |
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Graduate students from Eric Gidal’s (CLAS, English) course “Humanities Lab: Bioregionalism in History, Theory, and Practice” were also in attendance. The students in Gidal’s seminar are partnering with the Bondurant Historical Society and will work in small groups to complete projects that explore the inherent tension involved in the city’s growth with observance of its past. We love seeing the public humanities at work in our state!
Read more about the exciting partnership here.
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Data Curious? Putting the Human(ities) in Data Science | |
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Learn how to enter the data science space and what you can teach yourself through online tools. Work with former Philosophy PhD Trevor Nyman and learn about topics including:
- Specific value Humanities students contribute to data roles
- Necessary skills for getting a data job
- Typical day-to-day working in data science
- How to prepare for an interview for a data job
- How to use ChatGPT and other AI code assistants to accelerate job readiness
Trevor Nyman is a former PhD student (Northwestern, Philosophy) turned data scientist. He's worked in a data science capacity in tech, education, retail/CPG and the non-profit space. His journey from the Humanities to data science motivates him to help people coming from non-traditional backgrounds to prepare for careers in fields leveraging quantitative data.
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Sign-up for the Obermann Humanities 3-Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition |  | |
The Obermann Center's 2023 Humanities Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) will take place from 3:00–5:00 p.m on Thursday, September 28 at the Iowa City Public Library. REGISTER HERE. Applications are due September 25th.
Our 3MT is specially designed to feature the work of UI humanities graduate students. The 3MT event challenges graduate students to articulate their complex research clearly and concisely to non-specialist audiences in three minutes or fewer.
Berkley Conner (Communication Studies, CLAS) won the 2022 Obermann competition on her dissertation "Guarding Gender, Race, and Nation: A Rhetorical History of Menstrual Containment." She shared the creative challenges posed by the competition:
"It’s tricky to translate humanities research to a lay audience because it can be pretty abstract. Describing my process involved a lot of definitional work and example by comparison, which took a good chunk of the allotted three minutes. I don’t typically work with 'data' the way STEM students do, for example, so finding an effective way to communicate the importance and validity of my research without numbers to point to was challenging as well."
The winner of the Obermann Humanities 3MT receives $250 and directly advances to the campus-wide 3MT final on November 10, 2023. (Obermann Humanities 3MT participants may or may not choose to participate in the campus-wide preliminary 3MT contest on October 5 and 6. The winner of the Obermann Humanities 3MT, however, will advance to and be required to participate in the UI finals.) Read more about the rules and how to participate here.
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2023 LAWCHA Dissertation Proposal Workshop
The Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA) is pleased to announce its second annual Dissertation Proposal Workshop. The workshop supports doctoral students working on dissertations about working people, their lives, workplaces, communities, organizations, cultures, activism, and societal context in any period and place.
The dissertation prospectus workshop is intended for students who have not yet defended their dissertation prospectus and newly-minted ABDs. People who defended their dissertation prospectus before December 1, 2022 are ineligible to participate. At the workshop students will receive detailed feedback on their dissertation prospectus from scholars in the field, advice on applying for grants, and have an opportunity to network and share research and writing strategies with the other graduate student participants. The LAWCHA Graduate Student Affairs Committee will select up to ten graduate students to participate in the virtual workshop, which will take place on November 7, 2023 (7PM-10PM EST).
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To apply doctoral students will:
- submit a draft dissertation prospectus of up to 2,000 words discussing the significance of their work, their methodology, and the sources to be consulted; and
- a curriculum vitae of no more than 2 pages.
All materials should be submitted by email to LAWCHA.office@qmail.com
by October 1, 2023. Please put 'LAWCHA Dissertation Prospectus Workshop' in the subject line.
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Public Humanities Careers | |
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The Maine Humanities Council seeks a Program Coordinator to lead the organization’s statewide outreach work and develop and coordinate a new community history program. Apply by September 22, 2023.
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Virginia Humanities seeks a Deputy Director to lead its programs and operations. The Deputy Director works closely with the Executive Director to support the organization's mission by ensuring the successful implementation of programs and initiatives as they engage the many diverse communities of Virginia.
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ACLS Fellowship Opportunities | |
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The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) invites research proposals from scholars in all disciplines of the humanities and interpretive social sciences for their fellowship program. ACLS will award up to 60 fellowships with a maximum award of $60,000. This year, the fellowship is open to untenured scholars, working on or off the tenure track, who have earned a PhD in the humanities or humanistic social sciences on or after September 29, 2015. Apply by September 28, 2023.
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The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) invites applications for the Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowship in American Art, supporting graduate students pursuing research on the history of art and visual culture of the U.S. Apply by October 25, 2023.
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Applications for the ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship are due October 5, 2023. The Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Fellowship Program supports doctoral students in the humanities and interpretive social sciences as they pursue bold and innovative approaches to dissertation research. The fellowships are designed to intervene at the formative stage of dissertation development, before writing is advanced, and provide time and support for emerging scholars’ innovative approaches to dissertation research. Read more about how the fellows are employing pathbreaking research methods, project formats, and areas of inquiry here.
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Public Humanities Post-Doctoral Fellowship | |
Announcing two Postdoctoral Fellowships at the Syracuse University Humanities Center, in partnership with the Engaged Humanities Network. These 2-year fellowships combine publicly-engaged research, programming, curriculum development and teaching: applications preferred by or before October 23, 2023. Go to this link to learn more about the opportunity and the vibrant scholarly and public engagement community at Syracuse. | | | | |
