I have had the honor and pleasure of serving as the Director of the Feminist Research Institute since January 2021. Since my appointment in 2021, I have been studying the presence and legacies of previous directors and members of the governing boards of the Feminist Research Institute. I have engaged in this exercise of “study” to forge a path forward for the Institute that builds on previous leadership and existing intellectual communities. Since the mid-1990s the Feminist Research Institute at UNM has focused on supporting the production of scholarship on women, gender, and sexuality and cultivating intellectual communities among feminist scholars at UNM. Known simply as the FRI, the institute has proudly supported the research excellence for which UNM feminist scholars are known at local, national, and global levels. The strength of the FRI has been the institute’s ability to bring together scholars from different disciplines and departments into contact with one another to foster interdisciplinary projects and conversations.
In a moment where the concept and lived experience of “gender” is under scrutiny; intellectually, socially, politically, and culturally the production and dissemination of feminist research is urgently necessary. More specifically, feminist scholars are relentlessly being implored to ask the questions that matter, or rather raise the stakes of what might come to fruition in reinvigorating the category of gender and its utility as a frame of analysis. The countless legislative attacks on gender, have revealed that the future of gender is now. For that reason, I have recently restructured the FRI’s funding structure to include grant opportunities that encourage a more collaborative approach to undertake research on issues/topics related to women, gender, and sexuality. The new funding opportunities call upon faculty and graduate students to come together and form working groups that propose projects/topics that ask the questions that matter and raise the stakes as they are related to the following priorities:
Proposals for interdisciplinary projects are particularly welcome, and junior faculty are especially encouraged to apply. Full-time tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure track faculty and librarians are eligible to apply.
Proposals that contribute to Feminist, Queer, Transgender, Critical Race, Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Critical Indigenous Studies scholarship focused on the study of women, gender, and/or sexuality at UNM.
Proposals that focus on community-based research and creative projects in partnership with locally based community organizations that address social, political, cultural, and economic inequities of underrepresented populations in New Mexico and the southwest region.
The funding opportunities for the 2024-2025 funding cycle ask that faculty and graduate students converge upon current and prescient issues related to race, gender, and sexuality. I encourage faculty and students to apply for FRI funding this cycle and encourage the submission of proposals that are innovative, experimental, and non-traditional which most importantly are representative of UNM’s rich legacy of feminist scholars and innovators.
Sincerely,
Dr. Francisco J Galarte
Director, Feminist Research Institute
The FRI: Feminist Research Institute is dedicated to supporting the production of scholarship on women, gender, and sexuality, and to the creation of an intellectual community among feminist scholars at UNM. UNM has a large number of and the Institute cultivates opportunities for feminist faculty and graduate students to meet, work and create with others both within and across disciplines.
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