Home University: Wilfrid Laurier University
Email: john1431@mylaurier.ca
Education: BA History and English (Dalhousie); MA History (Waterloo)
Research Fields: 20th Century American Social and Cultural History, History of Popular Culture, History of Rock and Roll, Death and Rock and Roll.
Supervisor: David Monod
Michelle Johnston is a popular cultural historian and PhD Candidate at Wilfrid Laurier University. She received her BA with a double major in History and English from Dalhousie University, and has also spent time abroad studying at the Universities of Hull and Sussex in the UK. She completed her Masters degree in History in 2018 at the University of Waterloo, having written her thesis on female experience during the Holocaust. Her current research undertakes an historical evaluation of death in rock and roll - specifically, the prevalence of death in the genre since its inception, and the significance that this permeation of death has had upon the music itself and its consumption by audiences as popular media. Michelle has served as PhD representative for the Laurier History department, and currently is Laurier's TUGSA president. She is an OGS scholar.