
Contact Information
Biography
Louisa Mackenzie grew up in Scotland and did graduate work in Berkeley, California before moving to the UW in 2002. Louisa's research interests include early modern and contemporary Francophone and Anglophone culture, ecocriticism, Animal Studies, and gender studies, from a comparative perspective. Their first book The Poetry of Place (2011) is an interdisciplinary study of landscape and ideology in 16th-century poetry, articulating cartographic and land use histories with literary criticism. The book won an honorable mention from the Modern Language Association. With Stephanie Posthumus, Louisa co-edited a volume of academic essays on Animal Studies, French Thinking About Animals (2015). Their focus then shifted to transgender and non-binary identity formation, including pedagogical implications in the language classroom, and they have collaborated with Vinay Swamy at Vassar College on several related events and publications, including book-length edited collections in English (H-France Salon, "Legitimizing Iel", 2019,) and in French ("Devenir non-binaire", Le Manuscrit, 2022). They teach a broad variety of classes on many periods and themes, including science fiction, the "idea of Europe", and comparative gender studies. 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. They are very involved in shared governance at the UW, and have served as Faculty Senate Chair in 2024-25.
Research
Selected Research
- https://www.world-affairs.org/event/europes-ideals-realities-in-three-french-films-roundtable-discussion-celebrating-europe-day/
- « Savoir situer, savoirs situés : le cas non-binaire ». Recording of the second session of the "journée de réflexion" at Reid Hall, Paris, France, February 2022.
- Vinay Swamy et Louisa Mackenzie, ed. 2022. "Devenir non-binaire en français contemporain." Paris: Le Manuscrit. Download PDF
- Louisa Mackenzie (2022). Revisiting Places: Can We Still Be Early Modern? Keynote Address, Early Modern French Conference of the Society for Early Modern French Studies, 5–7 July 2022, St Andrews, Early Modern French Studies, DOI: 10.1080/20563035.2022.2152301 Download PDF
Courses Taught
Winter 2025
Winter 2024
Spring 2023
To date I have taught a wide range of undergraduate courses with French as the language of instruction. In CHID, I am planning to keep my focus on French and Francophone archives while teaching in English as the language of instruction, and adding explicitly comparative approaches to course content. The first class I will teach is a large 200-level class on "The Idea of Europe in Film", which will look at how contemporary films from Europe engage with the idea of European identity itself. The course will be offered in Winter 2024. In Spring 2024, I will teach a seminar on "Intergenerational Conversations", focusing on a variety of issues - gender in particular- with a view to creating shared understanding across generations.