Kathleen Cruz (UC Davis), “Threads from a Latina Labyrinth: Ariadne in Puerto Rican and Chicana Poetry”

Much valuable attention has been paid to how Latine and Latin American creatives have regularly turned to the women of Greco-Roman myth and literature to comment upon contemporary concerns; fecund reimaginings of Medea and Antigone, in particular, have presented timely explorations of issues surrounding immigration, ethnic and racial identity, feminism and machismo, and linguistic identity, among others, within these communities. In this paper, Dr. Cruz will consider how Latine and Latin American writers have also at times turned to another mythic woman of the ancient Mediterranean: Ariadne of Crete. Through close examination of two poetic collections – Etnairis Rivera’s Ariadna del agua (Ariadna of the Water, 1989) and Analicia Sotelo’s Virgin (2018) – Dr. Cruz will explore how Ariadne’s story has been put to use regarding the Puerto Rican (including Nuyorican) and Chicane experience in particular and what unique opportunities it offers within the greater realm of Latine and Latin American creative engagement with the Mediterranean past.