Dr. Maddie Knickerbocker
BA (SFU), MMSt (U of T), PhD (SFU)
Maddie is a white settler of English, Dutch, German, Irish, and Scottish heritage who is part of the seventh generation of her family to live on Turtle Island, and the fourth to live on unceded, untreated territories of Halkomelem-speaking Nations.
Maddie teaches and researches histories of Indigenous-settler relations, gender and sexuality, and Canada. She approaches this work from decolonial, intersectional feminist perspectives, using community engaged, oral history, and digital humanities methods. Her favourite things to bring to class for students to work on are historical songs, photographs, artwork, and comics.
Currently, she is doing research relating to the McKenna-McBride Commission (1913-16), St. Mary's Indian Residential School, and Stó:lō cultural sovereignty. She is also serving as Department Chair from 2025-2028.
Courses taught
- HIST 1100: Reel History: History through Film
- HIST 1110: Kanata: Indigenous Histories in Canada
- HIST 1113: Cultures in Collision - Canada to 1867
- HIST 1114: Forged in Fire - Canada since 1867
- HIST 2314: Gender & Sexuality in Canada
- HIST 4400: Applications of History
- HIST 4411: Loud and Proud: 2SLGBTQIA+ Histories in North America
- HIST 4490: History of British Columbia
- HIST 4492: Canadian Social History: Order & Disorder
- HIST 4496: Canada and WWI
- HIST 4499: Special Topics – Music in Canadian Histories
- HIST 4499: Special Topics – Indigenous-Settler Relations in North America
- HIST 4499: Special Topics – Local Indigenous Histories
Scholarly Work
- Knickerbocker, Madeline Rose and Hilary A. Rose. “Our Family’s Travels on Turtle Island: A Critical Autoethnography.” Settler Colonial Studies (July 2025): 1-29.
- Knickerbocker, Madeline Rose. “Making Matriarchs at Coqualeeta: Stó:lō Women’s Politics and Histories across Generations.” In In Good Relation: History, Gender, and Kinship in Indigenous Feminisms, edited by Sarah Nickel and Amanda Fehr, 25-47. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 2020.
- Knickerbocker, Madeline Rose and Lisa Truong. “Cedar, Seagrass and Soapstone: Redefining the Teacup in Colonial Canada.” In The Inbetweenness of Things: Materializing Mediation and Movement between Worlds, edited by Paul Basu, 211-230. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.
- Knickerbocker, Madeline Rose and Sarah Nickel. “Negotiating Sovereignty: Indigenous Perspectives on a Settler-Colonial Constitution, 1970-1983.” BC Studies 190 (Summer 2016): 67-87.
- Knickerbocker, Madeline Rose. “‘What We’ve Said Can be Proven in the Ground’: Stó:lō Sovereignty and Historical Narratives at Xá:ytem, 1990-2006.” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 24, no. 1 (2014): 297-342.