Dr. Lizanne Henderson is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow (Dumfries Campus) where she teaches Scottish History, Human-Animal Studies, and is Programme Director of postgraduate master’s degree, MSc Sustainable Tourism and Global Challenges. Much of her research is on the Scottish witch-hunts, Arctic studies, wildlife tourism, and human-animal studies. She is currently working on a couple of projects, such as Picturing Polar Bears: Past and Present Semiotic and Iconic Perceptions of Ursus maritimus, and Scottish Arctic Explorers in the Nineteenth Century and their engagements with the Natural World. Her most recent monograph, Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment: Scotland, 1670-1740 was the winner of the Katherine Briggs Book Award in 2016, and she is currently preparing her next monograph (Super)natural Animals in the Age of the Stewarts.
Born in Toronto, Canada, Lizanne now lives in southwest Scotland. She obtained her BA (Double Honours in History and Fine Art) from University of Guelph, Ontario, an MA (Folklore) from Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, and a PhD (History) from University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. She has appeared on radio and television and is widely published. Her books include Scottish Fairy Belief: A History (2001; 2011); Fantastical Imaginations: The Supernatural in Scottish History and Culture (2009); and A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland 1000 to 1600 (2011). When not engaged in academic pursuits, Lizanne is a keen artist and photographer and particularly enjoys landscapes and wildlife themes.
She has been a lecturer and keynote speaker across Europe, North America, Japan, and the Arctic and spent five weeks as Visiting International Scholar at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She also spent three weeks volunteering on a wildlife conservation project at the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest in Kenya. Lizanne has nearly thirty-five years of experience on expedition ships throughout the UK, north Atlantic, and Arctic regions; she never tires of exploring our beautiful and amazing world.