Franke Wilmer
Lecturer

Franke Wilmer taught at Montana State University for 30 years, serving twice as Department Head of Political Science. She is currently Professor Emerita at MSU and Adjunct Professor at CU-Boulder. She received a BS from Shepherd University, and Master and Doctoral degrees from the University of Maryland, College Park. She was elected Faculty Senate Chair-Elect at MSU in 2015. She is a co-founder of the American Political Science Association’s Race, Ethnicity, and Politics section, served on the Governing Council of the American Political Science Association, and on the editorial board of the International Studies Quarterly. She has traveled to over 65 countries for research and guest lectures. In 2006 she was elected to the Montana state legislature where she served 8 years as a representative, including one term as Speaker Pro Tempore, and prior to that, was Chair of the Montana Human Rights Commission. She also served on the Montana Environmental Quality Council. Professor Wilmer teaches International Relations; International Human Rights; International Relations Theory; International Law; Peace and Conflict, Women’s Studies, and Globalization, Sustainability, and Justice. She has published four books and numerous scholarly articles and book chapters on her research into the links between political violence, identity, and human rights. Her most recent book (Breaking Cycles of Violence in Israel and Palestine, 2021, Lexington) analyzes the role of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists in disrupting conflict narratives through empathic engagement. Professor Wilmer also currently serves on the board of the Canadian Peace Research Association and the Academic Advisory Board for the Combatants for Peace. She has written three other books and numerous articles and book chapters on Indigenous peoples’ global political activism, the wars in former Yugoslavia, and a textbook on Human Rights in International Politics.