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Colleen Derkatch

Dr. Colleen Derkatch

Professor
DepartmentEnglish
EducationPhD, University of British Columbia
Areas of Expertiserhetorical theory and criticism; rhetoric of science, medicine, and health; writing studies; genre theory; health humanities; science and technology studies
http://www.colleenderkatch.com (external link) 
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Biography:

Dr. Derkatch is Professor of Rhetoric and Interim Chair in the Department of English at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her research and teaching focus on rhetorical theory and criticism, particularly rhetoric of science, health, and medicine, as well as the health humanities and science and technology studies. Her research seeks to understand “in-between” spaces in health and health discourse, such as spaces between medical research and practice, mainstream and non-dominant models of health care, doctors and patients, and expert and public understandings of evidence.

Dr. Derkatch’s books include Why Wellness Sells: Natural Health in a Pharmaceutical Culture (external link)  (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022) and Bounding Biomedicine: Evidence and Rhetoric in the New Science of Alternative Medicine (external link)  (University of Chicago Press, 2016). She has published articles in a range of journals such as Canadian Food Studies; Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine; Rhetoric of Health & Medicine; and Technical Communication Quarterly. She is also co-editor (with historian Sharrona Pearl) of the new Hopkins Health Humanities book series at Johns Hopkins University Press.

Dr. Derkatch has won awards for both research and teaching, and her research has been supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Visit her website at colleenderkatch.com.