Arts and Humanities

The Iowa Youth Writing Project (IYWP) is a non-profit outreach collective founded by University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduates that aims to join Iowa City’s unique literary heritage with Iowa’s larger community by empowering, inspiring, and educating Iowa’s youth through language arts and creative thinking. We provide one-of-a-kind writing, publishing, and creative learning opportunities to Iowa’s children and teens. To ensure that all young people can participate, the IYWP provides programs at little or no cost.

Dance routines, costumes, and floats based on Black Iowa themes and stories will be created for the 2016 Iowa City Carnival Parade—a community engagement event that positively brings diverse people into the streets of the city to celebrate and interact with one another.

The Legacies for Iowa project is a large-scale arts-sharing initiative that brings the extraordinary collections of the Stanley Museum of Art to communities across the state. Each object in our collections is a repository of our past and our present. As a cultural and educational institution, the Stanley Museum of Art has a responsibility not only to preserve these collective histories, but to create a legacy for the future of art in everyday life. With the generous support of the Matthew Bucksbaum family, the Stanley Museum of Art is empowered to do just that.

The Office of the State Archaeologist Education and Outreach program has available pamphlets, brochures, texts, exhibits, and publications for those interested in Iowa's archaeological heritage. Staff members can provide community presentations on a variety of archaeological topics, as well as tours of the OSA lab and collections.

The University of Iowa Mobile Museum launched in 2014 as a partnership between the UI Vice President for Research and Economic Development, the Office of the State Archaeologist, the UI Museum of Natural History, and the Old Capitol Museum. The Mobile Museum inspires visitors to understand the world by bringing exhibits with cutting-edge research, one-of-a-kind artifacts, and interactive digital media to Iowa’s communities statewide.

Faculty activities presenting history to the larger public audience, through podcasts, blogs, and op-ed pieces.

History Corps is a graduate student-led, online digital and oral history project based out of the Department of History at the University of Iowa. Through friendly, open, and reciprocal collaborations with community partners, nonprofit organizations, and graduate and undergraduate classes in the UI and Iowa City communities and beyond, HC tells stories and lends its academic training to interpretive projects that prove how history and the humanities affect everyone’s everyday lives.

Darwin Turner Action Theatre (DTAT) is the social outreach component for the Theatre Arts Department. It was originally established in 1968 as Black Action Theatre. Its mission was to expose Iowa audiences to African-American culture and promote knowledge and understanding to people of different backgrounds.

Dancers in Company is the touring dance company of the Department of Dance. The group of approximately twelve undergraduate and graduate students tours Iowa and the Midwest from February to June each year offering live concerts, workshops and lecture demonstrations for audiences of all ages.

Clinical Professor Liz Delsandro is actively involved in the planning committee that coordinates The AWESOME Autism Awareness Art Project. This exhibit celebrates artistic talent in children and adults with autism, in collaboration with the Arc of Johnson County and the Iowa City Community School District. Held during Autism Awareness Month in April, the show features art projects – including painting, drawing, photography, music, and more -- by Johnson County youth on the autism spectrum.