Performance launches Women’s Heritage Month

Fawzia Mirza presents “Me, My Mother and Sharmila Tagore” today at noon.

The UIC celebration of Women’s Heritage Month begins today with a one-woman show by self-described “lawyer-turned-actor-writer-and-educator” Fawzia Mirza.

Mirza, star of the internet series “Kam Kardashian,” has appeared in plays at the Goodman Theatre and the MCA and in Chicago-made films including “Scrooge & Marley” and “Jamie and Jessie Are Not Together.”

Mirza’s “Me, My Mother and Sharmila Tagore,” performed today at noon in the Latino Cultural Center, is the story of her strained relationship with her mother and an attempt to reconnect through their shared love of Bollywood star Sharmila Tagore.

The performance is co-sponsored by Catharsis Productions, Women’s Leadership and Resource Center and Asian American Resource and Cultural Center.

Other events this week:

• today, 3:30-5:30 p.m., 950 University Hall: “Starvation Politics: Women, Race and Gender in the ‘Discovery’ of Hunger in America,” Laurie Green, University of Texas, Austin.

Co-sponsored by African American studies, Social Justice Initiative, gender and women’s studies and the Institute for the Humanities.

Green’s talk is among the events leading up to “Freedom Dreams/Freedom Now,” a May 28-30 conference at UIC organized by the Social Justice Initiative that will commemorate the 1964 Freedom Summer Project and the Civil Rights Era.

• Thursday, 7 p.m., UIC Pavilion: UIC women’s basketball vs. Detroit. Free tickets for faculty, staff and families; call 312-355-1330 or email kdecker2@uic.edu by 7 p.m. today. UIC students free with i-card.

• Friday, 4:30-6:30 p.m., Latino Cultural Center: “Speak Out @ UIC.” Sponsored by the student group Feminists United.