The UI Center for the Book presents an artist talk with the Nadia Sophie Seiler Visiting Book Artist: STEPH RUE

Join UICB MFA Candidate Poojana Prasanna for her exhibition reception!

Over 400 languages are spoken in the United States. For "Tik Pirmyn, Nera Ko Cia Bijoti (Just Go Ahead, There Is Nothing to Fear)," UICB 2nd year MFA student Diane Vadino (@faraway.places.paper) is interviewing one person who speaks each of them — and recording two things: their language story, to be shared in an oral history, and "a message of encouragement or goodwill" in each tongue. A portion of them will be shared this Friday, Oct. 4, at RSVP @rsvpicia, 140 N Linn St., Iowa City, from 5-8 p...

Talk with Tim Barrett about his exhibit "Japanese Pocket Lanterns."

Come join us for Iowa Bibliophiles fall semester guest lecture with Megan Rosenbloom!

Gallery reception for "I will not look away" on Oct. 18 from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Members of Jewish Voice for Peace and Iowa City Action for Palestine will be present for a Q&A. There will also be educational materials available for folks who would like to learn more!

In 1721-25, the Amsterdam artist Bernard Picart produced some of the most influential representations of Jews and Judaism in European history. These transformative engravings, which became the most reproduced images of Jewish life in the early modern period, supported the expansion of religious toleration. David H. Price discusses Picart’s representational principle of authenticity and his promotion of works by Leon Modena and Manasseh ben Israel, two innovative rabbis who wrote about Judaism for Christian audiences.

Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86) is widely recognized as the most innovative German-Jewish thinker of the Enlightenment. He maintained friendships with notable Christian intellectuals of the time, such as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and published a wide variety of works concerning aesthetics, religion, and philosophy. The debate concerning Mendelssohn’s legacy continues today: Do his accomplishments reflect an assimilation to European Christian culture or the preservation of Jewish tradition? David H. Price approaches this question by engaging deeply with Mendellsohn’s oeuvre in the context of the Haskalah, i.e., the Jewish Enlightenment: “Let us retain the freedom of thought and speech with which the Father of all humankind has endowed us as our inalienable heritage and immutable right” (Jerusalem, 1783). David H. Price is a professor in the departments of Jewish studies, religious studies, art history, and history at Vanderbilt University. He is one of ten scholars to visit the University of Iowa this year as an Ida Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor.

Renate Mesmer is head of Conservation and Preservation at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Mesmer is an experienced book and paper conservator with more than 20 years’ experience in the field. The William Anthony Conservation Lecture Series, hosted by the University of Iowa Libraries Conservation and Collections Care Department, invites book and paper conservators and bookbinders to share their experience and work with the UI book arts community and beyond. Funded by a generous gift that established the William Anthony Endowment in 1989, it honors the Libraries’ first conservator and the first bookbinding instructor at University of Iowa Center for the Book.

UICB's annual kozo harvest out at the Oakdale paper research facility!

Group exhibition featuring UI Center for the Book Graduate Certificate students! Work on display will be an array of mediums featuring: bookbinding, paper making, letterpress printing, mixed media, printmaking and more!

The UICB will be holding an information session about the program on Nov. 15, 2024 at noon CT via teleconference. Videos and slides, faculty and students: we’ll describe the program, answer questions, and welcome anyone (from the curious to the already-committed applicant) who would like to participate.

Exhibits from UICB studio classes in lettering arts, papermaking, bookbinding, artist books, and letterpress printing will be on display. UICB Faculty work will be on display in the K.K. Merker Gallery. Food and drink will be served — all are welcome!