Catherine Jenkins’s medical humanities research explores the impact of medical imaging on patient-physician communication and the medicalization of comic book superheroes. She has presented this work at over thirty conferences in Canada, the UK, and Europe. She has also been a keynote speaker on Generative AI.
Teaching a broad range of communication courses, she works as a Contract Lecturer at both the day school and in continuing education programs at TMU. She has been the President of CUPE 3904 since 2023, representing lecturers and academic assistants at the university. As well as working in marketing and public relations on Bay Street, she has also taught medical communication through the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine and ran her own writing and editing business.
Catherine completed her PhD in the joint Communication and Culture program at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) and York University. Her MA and Honours BA, both from Trent University (Peterborough, Canada), are in Cultural Studies and Philosophy.
When is a Superhero not a Superhero? Chapter in Diverging the Popular, Gender and Trauma AKA the Jessica Jones Anthology (external link) . (Eds. Priya Rehal, Jessica Bay, and Grace Loa. University of Calgary Press, 2024)
The Evolution of Experiential Learning: Simulation Development from Live-Actor to Asynchronous Online. Seventeenth International Conference on e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies Conference Proceedings (cgscholar.com) (Eds. William Cope and Mary Kalantzis. Common Ground Research Networks, 2024)
Forgiving European Witches: The Case for Pardons and Memorials. Chapter in Divergent Women: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Female Deviance and Dissent (external link) . (Eds. Lorraine Rumson, Abby Bentham, and Liza Blackman. UK: Emerald Group Publishing, 2022)
Human versus Cyborg Life: Quality versus Quantity. Chapter in The Future of Humanity. (Eds. Pavlina Radia, Sarah Winters, and Laurie Kruk. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019)
Medical Imaging’s Intrusive Gaze. Chapter in Medicine and What it Means to be Human. (Ed. Lesa Scholl. Melbourne: Routledge, 2018)
Book review of Supernatural Entertainments: Victorian spiritualism and the Rise of Modern Media Culture by Simone Natale, Canadian Journal of Communication, 43:3 2018.
Life Extension, Immortality and the Patient Voice chapter in The Power of Death: Perceptions of Death in the Western World (Eds. Maria-José Blanco and Ricarda Vidal. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2014; paper cover 2017)
Curing Venice’s Plagues: Pharmacology and Witchcraft postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies, Medievalism and the Medical Humanities issue (Summer 2017)
The Message in Medical Imaging Media: An Analysis of GE Healthcare’s Vscan™ chapter in Finding McLuhan: The Mind/The Man/The Message (Eds. Jaqueline McLeod, Tracy Whalen, and Catherine G. Taylor. Regina: University of Regina Press, 2015)
Book review of Reproduction by Design: Sex, Robots, Trees, & Test-Tube Babies in Interwar Britain by Angus McLaren, Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 32:2 2015.
(PDF file) Aberrant Decoding: Dementia and the Collision of Television with Reality (external link) The Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. New York, NY: Columbia University, Fall 2012 (online)
Ongoing curation of the Communicating with Comics Virtual Library showcasing some of the best student-created comics since the inception of CMN 231 in 2024
Best Paper Presenter for Comics for Undergraduate Self-Exploration at the Eurasia Research International Teaching Conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Feb 20, 2026
Interviewed for TMU’s Faculty Affairs newsletter: In Conversation with Catherine Jenkins: Insights on CUPE and the Power of Experience in Higher Education - Faculty Affairs - Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), Fall 2025
Dean’s Teaching Award for CUPE Contract Lecturers, 2020
- Medical Humanities
- Medical Communication
- Graphic Medicine
- Cultural Studies
- Interdisciplinary Studies
- European Witch Trials
- Storytelling and Poetry
- PC 8104: Crisis Communication
- PC 8002: Professional Communication: History, Theory, Practice
- CMN 100: Professional Health Communication
- CMN 200: The Craft of Professional Writing
- CMN 210: Text, Image, and Sound
- CMN 215: Messages, Media, and Modalities
- CMN 231: Communicating with Comics
- CMN 279: Introduction to Professional Communication
- CMN 306: Risk and Crisis Communication
- CMN 313: Organizational Problem Solving and Report Writing
- CMN 314: Professional Presentations
- CMN 315: Issues in Organizational Communication
- CMN 402: Theorizing Communication
- CMN 411: Special Topics: COVID-19 Communication
- CMN 432: Communication in the Engineering Professions