Texas A&M University-Texarkana and the Program for Learning and Community Engagement (PLACE) will host poet Joy Ladin for a poetry workshop and reading on Thursday, May 9.

The workshop will take place from 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. in University Center room 230, and the poetry reading will be from 7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. in University Center room 217. Both events are free and open to the public and light refreshments will be served.

Joy Ladin holds the Gottesman Chair in English at Yeshiva University, and, in 2007, according to the press release, became the first (and still only) openly transgender employee of an Orthodox Jewish institution. Her work has been recognized with a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship, an American Council of Learned Societies Research Fellowship, and two Hadassah Brandeis Institute Research Fellowships, among other honors. A nationally recognized speaker on trans and Jewish identity, she serves on the Board of Keshet, an organization devoted to full inclusion of LGTBQ Jews in the Jewish world.

PLACE is a faculty-led program designed to create a community of learners comprised of A&M-Texarkana students, faculty, staff and the community at large. PLACE chooses an annual theme around which to organize a lecture series and other activities that provide focal points for learning and discussion. This year’s theme is “Gender Issues.”

For more information, contact Dr. Angie Sikorski, PLACE chair, at asikorski@tamut.edu and visit the PLACE website at www.tamut.edu/PLACE

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