Book cover: “The Gaze of the Caged Woman”Ila Ahlawat will read from and sign copies of her book “The Gaze of the Caged Woman,” Wednesday in the Campus Bookstore.

Signing and reading to launch book by campus author

A reading Wednesday, Nov. 21, in the Campus Bookstore will serve as a launch for a book by a UWindsor author that draws on theorists on psychoanalysis, feminism, sexuality, and theatricality to explore the themes of female entrapment and the feminine gaze.

Ila Ahlawat, a sessional instructor in the women’s and gender studies program, says her book, The Gaze of the Caged Woman: Sexuality and Performance in Selected Beckett Plays, examines female sexuality in the later works of Irish dramatist Samuel Beckett.

Dr. Ahlawat says her book “investigates the relation of a woman’s bodily ‘deformity’ to the temporal deformity it unleashes on a theatrical setup; the power of the invaginated other to ‘sexualize’ or ‘genderize’ not just the Beckettian heroes but also the stage.”

She will be in the bookstore’s lounge from 1 to 3 p.m. The event is free and open to the public; books will be available for purchase and signing.