Associate Professor Louisa Mackenzie gave the keynote address at the Early Modern French Conference of the Society for Early Modern French Studies for her article "Revisiting Places: Can We Still Be Early Modern?" This article "articulates the places of early modern poetry with contemporary eco-theories. Mobilising the connectivities of οικος rather than the separations of environment, the author traces ecological senses of place in the poetry of Du Bellay, Jacques Peletier, and Ronsard, and reclaims Renaissance humanism from posthumanist detractors. Humanist pastoral poetry manifests the sense of connection claimed as the purview of contemporary concepts such as naturecultures or transcorporeality. She argues that the "Renaissance place, as an ecological habit of thought, contrasts favourably with modern veneration of wilderness which separates human from environs and this suggests continuities between Renaissance humanism and our academic humanities inasmuch as they privilege relational, rather than acquisitive or extractive, value systems."
Professor Mackenzie presented her research in the keynote address for the Conference on Early Modern French Studies in St. Andrews, Scotland in the summer of 2022.
In addition Professor Mackenzie has been working with the UW Faculty Senate and the Council for Gender, Equity, and Justice. She has worked to rewrite the Faculty Code to make it gender neutral and is now working with the Council to steer the changes through the Senate. This work has been highlighted in this article "Communicating Respectfully with People of All Gender Expressions" from the Whole U. Specifically she has been working in her capacity as a UW Faculty Senator to remove the remaining approximately 80 instances of gender-exclusionary language in the Faculty Code.
Professor Mackenzie also serves on the Senate Executive Committee. Community activities include volunteering with the GSBA scholarship fund, providing academic scholarships to LGBT-identified students.