I’m Professor of Rhetoric in the Department of English at Toronto Metropolitan University. My 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. I am especially interested in understanding “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.
I am the author of Why Wellness Sells: Natural Health in a Pharmaceutical Culture (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022) and Bounding Biomedicine: Evidence and Rhetoric in the New Science of Alternative Medicine (University of Chicago Press, 2016). With historian Sharrona Pearl, I am coeditor of the new Hopkins Health Humanities book series at Johns Hopkins University Press. I am also Co-Chair of the RHM Symposium through to 2025.
I live in Toronto with my family and an orange cat who hates me. I also really like hanging out in the mountains.
Research Interests
History and theory of rhetoric; rhetorical criticism; rhetoric of science, medicine, and health; writing studies; health humanities; science and technology studies
Education
PhD, English Language (University of British Columbia)
MA, English (Queen’s University)
BA Honours, English (University of British Columbia)
Employment
Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University, 2023 – present
Associate Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University, 2016 – 2023
Assistant Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University, 2011 – 2016
Lecturer, University of British Columbia, 2010 – 2011
Other Current Appointments and Affiliations
Interim Chair, Department of English, Toronto Metropolitan University, 2023 – 2024
Series co-editor, Hopkins Health Humanities, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023 –
Co chair, Rhetoric of Health and Medicine Symposium, 2022 –
Publications
Books:
Derkatch, Colleen. Why Wellness Sells: Natural Health in a Pharmaceutical Culture. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022.
Derkatch, Colleen. Bounding Biomedicine: Evidence and Rhetoric in the New Science of Alternative Medicine. University of Chicago Press, 2016.
Articles and Chapters:
Derkatch, Colleen, and Julie Homchick Crowe. “Supplements as Symbols: Public Arguments Against Natural Health Product Regulation in Canada.” SSM – Qualitative Research in Health, vol. 4, n.p., 2023.
Derkatch, Colleen, Kristin Kondrlik, Hua Wang, and Beck Wise. “A Dialogue on Public Health Celebrities during COVID-19 [PREPRINT].” Accepted for publication in Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, vol. 6, no. 4.
Spoel, Philippa, and Colleen Derkatch. “How the Focus on Food Literacy in Ontario’s Food Charter Toolkits Detracts from Meaningful Food (In)Security Action.” Critical Dietetics, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 1-11, 2022.
Derkatch, Colleen, and Philippa Spoel. “Health Humanities as an Interdisciplinary Intervention: Rhetoric, Genre, and Health Citizenship.” The Rhetoric of Health and Medicine As/Is: Theories and Concepts for an Emerging Field, edited by Lisa Melonçon et al., Ohio State University Press, 2020, pp. 13-32. [Please feel free to contact me for a preprint version.]
Spoel, Philippa, and Colleen Derkatch. “Resilience and Self-Reliance in Canadian Food Charter Discourse.” POROI, vol. 15, no. 1, Jan. 2020, pp. 1–28.
Derkatch, Colleen. “The Self-Generating Language of Wellness and Natural Health.” Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, vol. 1, no. 1–2, 2018, pp. 132–60. [Link to journal version.]
Derkatch, Colleen, and Philippa Spoel. “Public Health Promotion of ‘Local Food’: Constituting the Self-Governing Citizen-Consumer.” Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, vol. 21, no. 2, Mar. 2017, pp. 154–70.
Spoel, Philippa, and Colleen Derkatch. “Constituting Community through Food Charters: A Rhetorical-Genre Analysis.” Canadian Food Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, Apr. 2016, pp. 46–70.
Derkatch, Colleen. “‘Wellness’ as Incipient Illness: Dietary Supplement Discourse in a Biomedical Culture.” Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society, vol. 2, no. 2, 2012.
Derkatch, Colleen. “Demarcating Medicine’s Boundaries: Constituting and Categorizing in the Journals of the American Medical Association.” Technical Communication Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 3, 2012, pp. 210-29.
Derkatch, Colleen. “Does Biomedicine Control for Rhetoric? Configuring Practitioner-Patient Interaction.” Rhetorical Questions in Health and Medicine. Eds. Joan Leach and Deborah Dysart-Gale. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010, pp. 146-70.
Derkatch, Colleen. “Method as Argument: Boundary Work in Evidence-Based Medicine.” Social Epistemology, vol. 23, no. 4, 2008, pp. 371-88.
Derkatch, Colleen, and Judy Z. Segal. “Realms of Rhetoric in Health and Medicine.” University of Toronto Medical Journal, vol. 82, no. 2, 2005, pp. 138-142.
External Grants
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Grant, 2018 – 2024.
SSHRC Insight Development Grant, 2013 – 2017.
Café Scientifique Grant (PI: Gillian Crozier), Canadian Institutes of Health Research Council of Canada (CIHR), 2013.
Major Awards
Toronto Metropolitan University Deans’ Research Award, 2024.
Toronto Metropolitan University Deans’ Research Award (early career category), 2017.
Faculty of Arts New Faculty Teaching Award, Toronto Metropolitan University, 2013.