# Event Details - **Event Name**: We Radiant Things: Notes on Being Alien and Becoming Cyborg by Franny Choi - **Event Start and End Date**: Fri, 23 Oct, 2026 at 07:00 pm – Fri, 23 Oct, 2026 at 08:30 pm (-05:00) - **Event Description**: "We Radiant Things is criticism at its most intimate and alive. I am grateful for this book.”—Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor FeelingsAbout this EventBlending lyric memoir and cultural criticism, acclaimed poet Franny Choi’s debut essay collection explores our obsession with cyborgs and what sci-fi representations of Asian femmes reveal about race, gender, sexuality, disability, labor, technology, and language.In the 2014 film Ex-Machina, a Japanese maid named Kyoko—beautiful, obedient, unspeaking—peels back the skin on her face to reveal glimmering circuitry. The white man who has been trying to understand her inscrutable behavior looks on in horror. When Franny Choi first watches this scene, their own face awash in the screen’s eerie glow, they feel a familiar mix of revulsion and self-recognition. Yes, Choi thinks, that’s what I’ve been trying to say.In this luminous essay collection, Choi descends into the uncanny valley to encounter notable cyborgs and robots from across American culture and asks why so many of them bear the faces of East Asian women. Just why is it that whenever artificial intelligence is represented, a sexy but unfeeling Asian woman enters the frame? What does the literal objectification of Asian femmes say about how the West imagines—and dreads—an increasingly automated future?Choi draws from their own experiences along with queer, feminist, and critical race theory to answer these questions. Refusing the detached safety of critical distance, they write instead “at stabbing range”—a risky intimacy that collapses the space between human and machine, critic and subject. We Radiant Things draws closer to the images carved out for us, the histories of oppression that animate them, and the future in which we try, painfully, to find ourselves.Franny Choi is the author of two previous poetry collections, Soft Science (Alice James Books, 2019) and Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014). Her poems have appeared in the New York Times, the Nation, the Paris Review, and elsewhere. They are Faculty in Literature at Bennington College and founded Brew & Forge, a project that aims to build connections between writers, artists, and organizers.Michelle N. Huang is Associate Professor of English and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University. Her first book, Racial Beings: Experiments in Asian American New Materialisms, was published in March 2026 with Duke University Press. A film essay she created on science fictional representations of Asian Americans, , is viewable online at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.Accessibility: This event is hosted at the bookstore, which is a wheelchair accessible space. Masks are strongly encouraged for this event but not required. We have one industrial air purifier, two smaller air purifiers, and four ceiling fans throughout our space. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. To request ASL interpretation for this event, please email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com by no later than 14 days before the event. For other access needs please email . - **Event URL**: https://allevents.in/chicago/we-radiant-things-notes-on-being-alien-and-becoming-cyborg-by-franny-choi/100001999221596613 - **Event Categories**: fitness, Art, literary-art, Sports, Entertainment, science-fair, Nonprofit - **Interested Audience**: - total_interested_count: 0 ## Ticket Details - **Ticket Price Range**: min: 0, max: 0, currency: USD ## Event venue details - **city**: Chicago - **state**: IL - **country**: United States - **location**: Women & Children First - **lat**: 41.97722220000001 - **long**: -87.6682417 - **full address**: Women & Children First, 5233 North Clark Street, Chicago, United States ## Event gallery - **Alt text**: We Radiant Things: Notes on Being Alien and Becoming Cyborg by Franny Choi - **Image URL**: https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events1/banners/38aefbeef9ac9fe777ceda6b3f76d8f189b019f450a855fead0e9b0a3a17f947-rimg-w1200-h600-dc8898c8-gmir.jpg?v=1788338766 ## FAQs - **Q**: When and where is We Radiant Things: Notes on Being Alien and Becoming Cyborg by Franny Choi being held? - **A:** We Radiant Things: Notes on Being Alien and Becoming Cyborg by Franny Choi takes place on Fri, 23 Oct, 2026 at 07:00 pm to Fri, 23 Oct, 2026 at 08:30 pm at Women & Children First, 5233 North Clark Street, Chicago, United States. - **Q**: Who is organizing We Radiant Things: Notes on Being Alien and Becoming Cyborg by Franny Choi? - **A:** We Radiant Things: Notes on Being Alien and Becoming Cyborg by Franny Choi is organized by Women & Children First. ## Structured Data (JSON-LD) ```json [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Event", "name": "We Radiant Things: Notes on Being Alien and Becoming Cyborg by Franny Choi", "image": "https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events1/banners/38aefbeef9ac9fe777ceda6b3f76d8f189b019f450a855fead0e9b0a3a17f947-rimg-w1200-h600-dc8898c8-gmir.jpg?v=1788338766", "startDate": "2026-10-23T19:00:00-05:00", "endDate": "2026-10-23T20:30:00-05:00", "url": "https://allevents.in/chicago/we-radiant-things-notes-on-being-alien-and-becoming-cyborg-by-franny-choi/100001999221596613", "eventStatus": "https://schema.org/EventScheduled", "location": { "@type": "Place", "name": "Women & Children First", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "5233 North Clark Street", "postalCode": "60640", "addressLocality": "Chicago", "addressRegion": "IL", "addressCountry": "US" }, "geo": { "@type": "GeoCoordinates", "latitude": "41.97722220000001", "longitude": "-87.6682417" } }, "eventAttendanceMode": "https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode", "description": "\"We Radiant Things is criticism at its most intimate and alive. I am grateful for this book.”—Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings", "offers": [ { "@type": "AggregateOffer", "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock", "priceCurrency": "USD", "availabilityStarts": "2026-09-02", "availabilityEnds": "2026-10-23T20:30:00-05:00", "validFrom": "2026-09-02", "lowPrice": "0.00", "highPrice": "0.00", "price": "0.00", "url": "https://allevents.in/chicago/we-radiant-things-notes-on-being-alien-and-becoming-cyborg-by-franny-choi/100001999221596613" }, { "@type": "Offer", "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock", "priceCurrency": "USD", "availabilityStarts": "2026-09-02", "availabilityEnds": "", "validFrom": "2026-09-02", "url": "https://allevents.in/chicago/we-radiant-things-notes-on-being-alien-and-becoming-cyborg-by-franny-choi/100001999221596613", "price": 0, "name": "General Admission" }, { "@type": "Offer", "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock", "priceCurrency": "USD", "availabilityStarts": "2026-09-02", "availabilityEnds": "", "validFrom": "2026-09-02", "url": "https://allevents.in/chicago/we-radiant-things-notes-on-being-alien-and-becoming-cyborg-by-franny-choi/100001999221596613", "price": 0, "name": "Donation to the WCF Event Fund" } ], "organizer": [ { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Women & Children First", "url": "https://allevents.in/org/women-and-children-first/17676387", "description": "Women & Children First is one of the largest feminist bookstores in the country, stocking more than 30,000 books by and about women, children's books for all ages, and the best of lesbian and gay fiction and non-fiction. And we also serve as a neighborhood bookstore to Andersonville, Edgewater, Rogers Park, and other parts of the northside of Chicago and Evanston. Anything we don't have in stock we can usually get in a few days' time, even if it's a title outside our specialty. We also carry cards, magazines, blank books and journals, calendars, gift items like candles, and pride products." } ] } ] ```