Prof. Emerita Gac-Artigas Publishes in Letralia

Priscilla Gac-Artigas, Ph.D., professor emerita in the Department of World Languages and Cultures, recently published an essay, Ángela Gentile y la Reescritura Feminista del Mito Clásico ("Ángela Gentile: A Feminist Rewriting of Classical Myth") in the cultural literary review "Letralia" (Sept. 2025).

In her essay, Gac-Artigas situates Gentile's poetry within the broader movement of feminist myth-rewriting that seeks to dismantle patriarchal epic traditions. Following the paths of writers such as Christa Wolf ("Kassandra"), Margaret Atwood ("The Penelopiad"), Rosario Castellanos, Claribel Alegría, and Rosario Ferré, Gentile engages in what Gac-Artigas calls a "symbolic feminist archaeology," restoring centrality to silenced female figures across classical, cultural, and oral traditions.

Gentile's work recasts marginalized voices-daughters, wives, mothers, goddesses-as active agents of memory and resistance. Expanding beyond Greco-Roman mythology, she incorporates contemporary cultural myths, indigenous traditions, and oral narratives, underscoring that myth is not confined to classical texts but endures in forgotten generations, ancestral languages, and resonant silences.

Gac-Artigas concludes that Gentile's feminist rewriting does not destroy tradition but enriches it, re-illuminating the epic from its margins. Her poetry demonstrates how myth, re-signified through a feminist lens, becomes an aesthetic and political tool to recover erased voices and challenge cultural exclusions.

Gac-Artigas is a Fulbright Scholar, a full member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE), and a correspondent member of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE).