Michelle Thompson

Academic Career

Michelle Thompson studied Women and Gender Studies and Modern Languages (German, Spanish, Comparative Literature, and Linguistics) at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada (2009–2014). During this time, she spent the 2011–2012 academic year at Carl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg, Germany. From 2012–2014, she worked as a tutor for German and Spanish courses and as a cultural and language assistant in the English as a Foreign Language program at the University of Saskatchewan.

In 2015, after a language stay in Germany, she began an M.A. in Ethnology at the University of Freiburg, which she completed successfully in spring 2018. Since October 2018, she has been a doctoral candidate and research associate at the Graduate College 1767 “Faktuales und Fiktionales Erzählen” (funded 2013–2021) in Freiburg. Her current research focuses on narratives about, as well as conceptualizations, representations, and imaginations of Indigenous peoples in Germany.

Regional Focus

• Canada (Prairie Provinces / Numbered Treaties)
• Germany

Thematic Focus

• Narratives and Narrative Theory
• Experimental Ethnographies
• Collaborative Ethnography
• Drawing as an Ethnographic Method / Graphic Anthropology
• Imagination, Knowledge Transfer, and Non-Knowledge
• Decolonial Theory / Settler-Colonial Studies

 Publications

• Rohrer, Ingo und Michelle Thompson. (2022). “Imagination theory: Anthropological perspectives.” Anthropological Theory. DOI:10.1177/14634996221129117  
• Thompson, Michelle. (2021). “Die Körperlichkeit ethnologischer Forschung, jetzt anders”. Kontrapunkte. https://kontrapunkte.hypotheses.org/2155
• Thompson, Michelle. (2020). Using stories to understand myths in Canada: Reflections of story-based epistemology from an anthropological perspective. In T. Schmitt, A.-L. Harmening and M. Baumgärtner (eds.) Intersections of gender and myth in Canadian culture and media. Paderborn: Universitätsbibliothek Paderborn, 51-68. DOI: 10.17619/UNIPB/1-1073
• Thompson, Michelle. (2018). Imagined stories and the (re)telling of fiction as fact – An anthropological case study examining reactions to German Indianthusiasm. Freiburger ethnologische Arbeitspapiere. DOI: 10.6094/UNIFR/16294

Presentations

• German Indianthusiasm in transatlantic context: Reactions and Interactions. Amerikas Forschungskolloquium, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, 17.11.2022
• Mining Imagination: An interactive exercise about German Indianer imaginaries. DGSKA / Indigenous North America Workshop, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, 02.06.2022
• Optimizing the narrative potential in visual representations of ethnographic research results: Lessons from Joe Sacco’s Paying the Land. EUCOR Trinational English M.A. and PhD Conference, University of Basel, 08.–09.04.2022
• Zur Graphic Anthropology: Lessons from narrative research and Joe Sacco’s graphic novel Paying the Land. Colloquium Americanum, Goethe University, 27.05.2021 (online)
• Inszenierte indigene Authentizität in ihrem institutionellen Rahmen. DGSKA Conference “The End of Negotiations,” 29.09.–02.10.2019, Konstanz
• Radical Responses: Indigenous-Settler reconciliation narratives and a (collective?) re-visioning of status-quo Treaty relationships. Polish Association for Canadian Studies Annual Meeting, 25.–27.09.2019, Lodz, PL
• Emplotting German “Indian” narratives with transatlantic occurrences from early colonization and the Romantic Era. Transatlantic Studies Association Annual Conference, 08.–10.07.2019, Lancaster, UK
• “The truth about stories…”: Indigenous engagement with German “Indian” narratives. Colloquium Americanum, Goethe University, 04.07.2019, Frankfurt
• Approaching cultural myths ethnographically: Galvanizing women’s voices in modifying narratives. Intersections of Gender and Myth Conference, Nachwuchsforum, 27.–28.06.2019, Kassel

Summer Semester 2025

• Ethnographie im religiösen Feld Freiburgs – Von der teilnehmenden Beobachtung bis zur dichten Beschreibung

Winter Semester 2019/2020

• Ethnographisches Schreiben – Beispiele aus Nordamerika