Jennifer Reid
Jennifer Reid is a consultant and researcher with the Winnipeg School of Communication, and a contributor to its journal, Winnsox. Her abiding passion is exploration of the interconnections between language, media, and identity, both historically and in the contemporary world. She has lectured and presented at universities around the world on topics focussing on media and communications.
Jennifer earned her PhD in Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto (where she also completed her MA), and was trained by leading academics in the field at the Centre for Medieval Studies. During her time at Toronto as a PhD candidate, she was the recipient of the U of T’s Thomas and Beverley Simpson Award, a three-year Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and the Colin Chase Award from the Centre for Medieval Studies. She went on to do post-doctoral research as a Fellow of the Institute for Humanities Research at the University of Amsterdam, and was a Visiting Scholar with the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program at the University of Auckland. During her undergraduate she pursued an Honours BA in Celtic Studies, English, and History, and graduated with distinction from the University of St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. While still an undergraduate, Jennifer received a scholarship to study as a language exchange student in the Gaeltacht of Connemara through NUI Galway.
Jennifer is Assistant Professor of English at the University College of the North (UCN). Her focus in teaching is pedagogy and training in texts and textual practices through linguistics and the language arts. In addition to undergraduate teaching, she contributes her expertise to the professional development of pre-service teachers in the Kenanow Bachelor of Education Program, affiliated with the National Centre for Collaboration in Indigenous Education. Prior to her appointment at UCN, Jennifer was a professor in the Interdisciplinary Linguistics Program and the Academic Writing Program at the University of Winnipeg. She taught media, communication, and culture from the Middle Ages to Modernity in the Book and Media Studies and Celtic Studies programs at the University of Toronto, and with the Department of English at York University. She recently published a book chapter, “Patrick and Social Identity at the End of Roman Britain,” in Litterarum Dulces Fructus: Studies in Early Medieval Latin Culture (Brepols, 2021).
Jennifer’s passion for media and communications was set in motion by a lifetime of involvement in the arts. She is a Member of the British Association of Teachers of Dancing, and is a former international performer and competitor in Highland Dancing. She has published poetry in both English and Irish Gaelic in the Hart House Review, Acta Victoriana, Garm Lu, and The Grammateion. As a contributor to SoundProof music magazine, Jennifer covered Canadian Music Week and the New Zealand Music Awards, and went on to become the Managing Editor of their international team of journalists and photographers. She is the former Director of the Mercy Spirituality Centre in Auckland, New Zealand.
