News

Center awarded $155,000 grant for printing program, student aid, and special initiatives
Jon Wilcox will lead Obermann seminar focusing on materiality and medieval texts

Center awarded $155,000 grant for printing program, student aid, and special initiatives

An anonymous donor has granted the UICB $155,000 to enrich its letterpress-printing program, to support its graduate students with research assistantships, and to promote the unit with national and local initiatives. Read more about the grant through the press release.

Jon Wilcox will lead Obermann seminar focusing on materiality and medieval texts

UICB and English Professor Jon Wilcox will direct an Obermann Center for Advanced Studies research program entitled “Medieval Manuscript Studies and Contemporary Book Arts: Extreme Materialist Readings of Medieval Books.” A competitive application process for fellowships resulted in an international group of scholars to work in tandem with UICB faculty Timothy Barrett, Cheryl Jacobsen, and Gary Frost. The seminar will run June 2 – June 13, 2008 at the University of Iowa. For more information, click here.

UICB Director to give invited talk at symposium in Israel

Matt Brown will participate in an international research workshop on book history and literary studies to be held at Ben-Gurion University, July 1-3, 2008. The symposium will gather historians, literary critics, media scholars, and bibliographers from across the globe to discuss the state of the field. For more information about the workshop, click here.

UICB Grads Contribute to Japanese Papermaking Conference in Toronto

UICB Certificate and MFA Design graduate (2001) Paul Denhoed and his wife Maki Yamashita will be major contributors at the World Washi Summit in Toronto, Canada June 7-15 this summer. They will accompany 3 papermakers from Japan, and act as their guides/translators for the week. Maki will give a bookbinding workshop, and Paul will give two talks on his experiences in Japan. Paul's papermaking research began 6 years ago when he received a Monbusho Fellowship from the Japanese government. Another UICB certificate graduate (2003) Tatiana Ginsberg will be at the conference as well, speaking and doing a workshop on her specialty which is natural vegetable dyeing of Japanese paper. Tatiana received a Fulbright to support her research in 2003-2004, and completed an MFA at UC Santa Barbara in 2007. For more information on the conference please click here.

Cheryl Jacobsen exhibits at Hudson River Gallery in Iowa City

UICB faculty Cheryl Jacobsen has a new exhibition entitled Inevitable on view at the Hudson River Gallery in Iowa City. Inevitable incorporates writing, found phrases and found objects to create unexpected displays of the inner life, spirituality, and humor. The exhibition will run March 28 – May 10. For more information, please click here.

Certificate student Jessica White excels at UI graduate conference

Jessica White won first place in the Fine & Performing Arts division in this year's 10th annual James F. Jakobsen Graduate Conference. White represented both the UICB and the Printmaking Department with a display of her letterpress printed, handmade scroll. The Jakobsen Conference is held annually and spotlights the work of graduate students from across the entire Graduate College. The event is co-sponsored by the Graduate Student Senate and the Graduate College. This year, the Conference was the capstone to the Graduate Student Recognition Week, showcasing presentations from scientists, mathematicians, writers, musicians, artists and the many other members of the University of Iowa graduate community.

Emily Martin exhibits in Secrets and Lies, a Nationally Juried Artist Book Show

Eyes Were Watching by Emily Martin

Eyes Were Watching, by UICB faculty member Emily Martin, has been selected to feature in Secrets and Lies, a national juried artist book exhibition in Portland, Oregon. The exhibition features book arts works by over 70 artists from around the world and was juried by Gay Walker, the special collections librarian at Reed College. For more information, please click here.

The UICB leads with graduate education that is authentically interdisciplinary

The Center offered two courses this academic year that featured collaborative teaching across disciplines, with a heady mix of students from various departments. Last fall, the Book Studies Workshop was led by UICB faculty in English and Art and included graduate students with backgrounds and enrollments in Anthropology, American Studies, Library Sciences, Art and Art History, Book History, English, and the UICB Certificate program. This spring, the UICB sponsored a graduate proseminar on the work of Michael Warner, co-taught by faculty in American Studies and English/UICB, and featuring Warner on the day of his visit as the UICB’s Ida Beam lecturer. Participating students included Certificate candidates in the UICB and MA and PhD candidates in Cinema and Comparative Literature, English, Library Sciences, and American Studies.

Matt Brown wins NEH fellowship for 2009

The Director of the UICB will study at the Library Company of Philadelphia in the spring of 2009, with the support of a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The fellowship will support research for his current book, The Novel and the Blank, an investigation of how the constraints of the print shop affected the literary culture and reading habits of colonial and early national America.

Julie Leonard joins the CBAA Board of Directors

The UICB’s Bookbinding Specialist has been named to the College Book Art Association Board of Directors, joining sixteen other leading figures in the field. This new professional organization will serve the book arts community in academic and other institutional settings, providing networks for graduate students, faculty, curators, and independent artists and scholars. For more information about the CBAA, go to their website here.

The UICB helps present Iowa City’s UNESCO City of Literature application

Center faculty Julie Leonard, Tim Barrett, and Cheryl Jacobsen created the box, paper, and lettering that is the artistic platform for Iowa City’s application to become the world’s second UNESCO “City of Literature,” along with Edinburgh, Scotland. Iowa City would join a range of other urban centers--Aswan, Egypt; Sante Fe, N.M.; Berlin, Germany; Montreal, Canada; Popayan, Colombia; Bologna, Italy; and Seville, Spain—in UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network. For more information and pictures of the UICB art, click here.