Through the generous support of the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization, International Programs' Major Projects Award promotes important contributions to scholarly debates and exchanges on international topics, issues, discoveries, and arts. Events sponsored by the Major Projects Award usually take the form of collaborations, symposia, conferences, lecture series, artistic exhibitions, and performance events. The events are conceived of, and spearheaded by, UI tenured and tenure-track faculty members. 

Current Award Winners

Frequencias spring 2023

Frequências: Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Cinema & the Black Diaspora

March 30 - April 1, 2023

Taking Brazil’s new Black cinema as its point of departure, Frequências: Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Cinema & the Black Diaspora brings together filmmakers, artists, scholars, and critics from across the globe in order to inaugurate a practice of collective attunement. How can we best attune ourselves to the waves set in motion by this new cinema? How does Brazil’s current Black cinema resonate within contemporary aesthetic practices of the Black diaspora in Africa, the Caribbean, North America and Europe? In what ways do these new formations of global cinemas refract our understanding of the post-colonial and of diaspora?

Organizer:

Christopher Harris, associate professor, Department of Cinematic Arts

Japanese temple

The Future of a Tradition: Asian Craft, Iowa Innovation, and the Japanese Papermaking Residencies

April 11, 2023 - April 24, 2023
 
Building upon a 2020-2021 arts and humanities initiative-funded project, Artisans and Artists in a Traditional Japanese Papermaking Village, the UI Center for the Book will bring two individuals to campus for a two-week residency that will galvanize the UI and Iowa City arts and research community. The goal of the residencies is to anchor expertise in the heart of traditional Japanese papermaking from Echizen, Japan here in Iowa City. Over the two-week period, residents and organizer will host a series of events open to the public and for UI students to share methods and learn with artists and scholars across the UI community.
 
Co-organizers:
Matthew P. Brown, associate professor, English Department and the UI Center for the Book
Nicholas Cladis, lecturer, the UI Center for the Book 

About the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization

Max and Betty Stanley

C. Maxwell (Max) and Elizabeth (Betty) M. Stanley were exemplary visionary leaders in philanthropic and educational endeavors. They strove to promote public understanding, constructive dialogue, and cooperative action on critical international issues and worked to recognize the essential roles of both the policy community and the broader public in building sustainable peace.

Alumni of The University of Iowa and longtime active volunteers and generous supporters of the institution, the Stanley's created The Stanley-University of Iowa Foundation Support Organization in 1979. which provides funding for projects across The University of Iowa. 

Interested in applying?

All University of Iowa tenured and tenure-track faculty members are invited to apply for this award.

Past Winners

2022: Korean Studies Research Network 2nd Annual Conference

Organizer:

Hyaeweol Choi, professor of Korean studies, gender history, and religious studies

2022: Race, Ethnicity, Language, and Culture Symposium: Advocating for DEI in the Academy

Co-organizers:

Jill Beckman, associate professor, Department of Linguistics
Waltraud Maierhofer, professor, Department of German
Kristine Muñoz, professor, Communication Studies
Helen Shen, professor, Asian and Slavic Languages and Literatures
Jan Steyn, lecturer, Department of French and Italian

2022: Bringing to Light International Artist Books Held in the UI Special Collections

Co-organizers:

Karen Carcia, associate professor of Practice, UI Center for the Book
Julia Leonard, associate professor, UI Center for the Book

2021: Corruption, the Rise of Populism, and the Future of Democracy Symposium

Co-organizers:

Mihailis Diamantis, professor of law
William Reisinger, professor of political science
Marina Zaloznaya, associate professor of sociology and political science

2018: Empowered Reading: Re-translation, Performance, and Critique Colloquium

Co-organizers:

Sabine Gölz, associate professor, German and comparative literature
Adrienne Rose, assistant professor, classics, comparative literature, translation

2017: Art & the Afterlife: Fantasy Coffins by Eric Adjetey Anang

Co-organizers:

Cory Gundlach, graduate student, art and art history; UIMA curator of the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
Christopher Roy, professor, art and art history
Isabel Barbuzza, associate professor, art and art history

2016: Doing Global History Locally

Co-organizers:

Glenn Ehrstine, associate professor, German and international studies
Elizabeth Heineman, professor and chair, history
H. Glenn Penny, professor, history

2015: Parody, Plagiarism, Patrimony: Don Quixote in the Age of Electronic Reproduction

Co-organizers:

Denise Filios, associate professor, Spanish & Portuguese
Ana M. Rodríguez-Rodríguez, associate professor, Spanish & Portuguese

2013: Who Will Build the 21st Century? – Addressing Critical Demographic Gaps in the Geosciences and Our Ability to Research, As

Organizer:

Bradley D. Cramer, assistant professor, geoscience

2013: Reciprocal exchange of training and research on tropical parasitic disease between the University of Iowa and two federal

Organizer:

Mary E. Wilson, M.D., professor, internal medicine and microbiology

2012: Iowa City Carnaval Project

Organizer:

Loyce Arthur, associate professor, theatre arts

2012: The Latino Midwest

Co-organizers:

Claire Fox, associate professor, English
Omar Valerio-Jiménez, assistant professor, history
Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez, assistant professor, Spanish and Portuguese

2011: Comics, Creativity, and Culture: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Co-organizers:

Corey K. Creekmur, associate professor, English/cinema & comparative literature
Ana Merino, associate professor, Spanish & Portuguese
Rachel Williams, associate professor, art education/gender, women’s and sexuality studies

2011: Diasporas and Development

Co-organizers:

Meena Khandelwal, associate professor, anthropology/gender, women's and sexuality studies
Mark Sidel, professor, law

2011: The Future of Multi-Party Democracy in East Africa

Organizer:

James Giblin, professor, history