Louisa Mackenzie (she/they /elle/iel)

Louisa Mackenzie grew up in Scotland and did graduate work in Berkeley, California before moving to the UW in 2002. Research interests include  early modern and contemporary French culture, ecocriticism, Animal Studies, and gender studies. Their first book The Poetry of Place (2011) is an interdisciplinary study of landscape and ideology in 16th-century poetry, articulating cartographical and land use histories with literary criticism. With Stephanie Posthumus, they co-edited a volume of academic essays on Animal Studies, French Thinking About Animals (2015). Louisa teaches a broad variety of classes on many periods and themes, including science fiction and Francophone gender studies. They have published recent articles or book chapters on animals, ecological thinking and humanist knowledge in 16th-century France, while current interests are more contemporary in nature.  With Vinay Swamy, Louisa co-edited and contributed to a volume of the H-France Salon on Francophone non-binary identity formations, and an updated and expanded book in French based on the same project, published in February 2022 in Paris. Louisa is a Faculty Senator representing four language departments on campus in central administration, and also serves on the Senate Executive Committee‧ Community activities include volunteering with the GSBA scholarship fund, providing academic scholarships to LGBT-identified students. Louisa has also served as a College Board Commissioner for AP French.