Education

Biography

Patricia Ventura was born in Itajuba, MG Brazil and immigrated to central Florida at the age of 5 where she grew up. She studied political science in college before shifting in graduate school to English. Her teaching and research reflect her intellectual focus on politics and culture. Her specific disciplines include media and film studies, critical and cultural theory, and American cultural studies.

Among other publications, she has written or edited three books. The first, "Neoliberal Culture: Living with American Neoliberalism" deals with US media, literature, architecture and social policies resulting from neoliberalism at the end of the Cold War. Her most recent book, co-written with Edward Chan, is "White Power and American Neoliberal Culture," which speaks to the urgency of the current moment by working through sources such as white terrorist manifestos, white power utopian fiction, neoliberal think tank reports, and neoconservative policy statements to analyze the intersections of white supremacy and neoliberal culture in the United States. Also with Dr. Chan, she edited and contributed to the book "Race and Utopian Desire in American Literature and Society" and edited a special issue of the "Journal of Utopian Studies" on race and utopia. She has also edited and contributed to a special double issue of the journal "Genre" titled "Circulating 'America.”'

Courses Taught

• American Literature Survey
• American Mythologies
• Conspiracy and American Culture
• Introduction to Critical Studies in English
• Race and Media
• Reality and Media: Documentary Film and Reality TV
• Feminist Film Criticism
• Images of Women in the Media
• Introduction to Popular Culture and Media Studies
• Literary and Critical Theory

Research Interests

Cultural Studies, American Studies, Neoliberal Culture Studies, film and media studies.

Publications

BOOKS
White Power and American Neoliberal Culture. Co-authored with Edward K. Chan. University of California Press, 2023.

Race and Utopian Desire in American Literature and Society. Co-editor with Edward K. Chan. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.  

ARTICLES AND SPECIAL COLLECTION
"American and/as White Supremacy." Co-author of issue with Edward K. Chan. "Cambridge Companion to American Utopian Literature and Culture, 1945-2020." Cambridge University Press. 2024

"Race and Utopia." Co-editor of issue with Edward K. Chan. "Utopian Studies." 2019.

"Scandal: Melodrama of Social Death."  In the book, "Gladiators in Suits: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Representation in Scandal."  Edited by Simone Puff, et al. Syracuse University Press, 2019.

"Dystopian Eating, Queer Liberalism, and the Roots of Donald Trump in HBO’s Angels in America." Journal of  Popular Culture, 2018.