GWSS professor Lisa Heineman, and co-director Ari Ariel (Division of Interdisciplinary Programs), have had their working group proposal accepted by the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies.
This working group will create a community among faculty, staff, and advanced graduate students with a shared interest in Jewish Studies, sharing research, strategizing about teaching, and engaging the larger community. We do not approach our discussions with a fixed aim, such as creating a Jewish Studies Program or editing a collection of essays. Rather, we see it as our task to explore opportunities for developing the field at Iowa, taking into account faculty, student, staff, and community interest as well as institutional factors. One of our tasks will be simply to explore the questions: “What is Jewish Studies? What do we want it to be?”
Obermann Center Working Groups provide space, structure, and discretionary funding for groups led by faculty that may include advanced graduate students, staff members, and community members with a shared intellectual interest. Groups have used this opportunity to explore new work and to share their own research, to organize a symposium, and to develop grant proposals.
This program allows participants from across the campus and beyond to explore complex issues at a moment when cross-disciplinary collaboration is crucial to address shifting domains of knowledge and a rapidly changing world.