Education
Biography
Rebecca J. Atencio is an Associate Professor of Portuguese and Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is currently working on a book manuscript on contemporary Brazilian feminisms and their expression in a variety of cultural forms, including fiction, music, cordéis, and zines.
Her first book, Memory's Turn: Reckoning with Dictatorship in Brazil (2014), explores the slow turn to memory in Brazil, showing how testimonial literature, telenovelas, literary novels, theatrical plays, and memorials have interacted with policies adopted by the Brazilian state, often in unexpected ways.
Since 2018, she has served as the Brazilian literature editor for the Luso-Brazilian Review, the oldest academic journal devoted to the Lusophone world in the United States. She is currently completing her second term as a member of the executive committee of the Brazilian Studies Association.
Professor Atencio teaches all levels of courses in both Portuguese and in the Gender & Sexuality Studies Program (which she directed from 2018-2022).