Censorship in Fictions | Episode 33

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Each week on The Matterhorn podcast, I discuss a way to layer fictions and discover the nuances of truth, using my novel as a catalyst but looking at other works of fiction as well as theory and interdisciplinary ideas. Each week, I also spend a little time on places & spaces, as part of a continued discourse on these ideas.

Thursday, I’ll be back with a 5-minute actionable version of today’s show, and Saturday I’ll share the next chapter of A Hong Kong Story. If you want to choose which posts you receive via email, please visit this page.

I’m keeping all of this completely free for listeners/readers with the option of patronage and support through my Bookshop.org affiliate page. Thanks for joining us today!

Today’s episode links to “Part I: Causeway Bay, i” in A Hong Kong Story.

Table of Contents

A full transcript can be accessed on the web version.

Keywords:

• Silence

• Book Burning

• Oppressive regimes - real vs imagined

• Impact on individuals

• Hong Kong media censorship

• Dangers facing journalists

• Literary examples from Iran and Egypt

• The panopticon

• Abstract considerations

• Place & Space focus - Newsrooms

Texts:

Books are linked to my affiliate page on Bookshop.org where I receive 10% of profits on any purchase. 80% of their profits go to independent bookstores. This helps to keep all my work paywall-free. Thanks for your support!

• Herta Müller’s The Land of Green Plums

• 1984 – by George Orwell

• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

• The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

• The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar

• The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz

• “Panopticism” from “Discipline and Punish” (Foucault) JStor / Bookshop.org full text

• The Circle by Dave Eggars

• Reporters Without Borders on journalist atttacks

• 50% rise from 20212022 of journalists killed (npr)

• 2020 US protests – attacks on journalists (the Guardian)

• China is waging a disinformation war against Hong Kong (NYT)

• Why I no Longer Write for South China Morning Post (HK Free Press)

• Who Bought the SCMP? (Al Jazeera)

• NYT's biased report on Shanghai's COVID fight betrays its ignorance of China (China Daily)

• List of books about censorship from BookAuthority.org

• Asia Society interview with Azar Nafisi

• NYT to add reporter bios to achieve trust in AI age

• Study showing reporter bios don’t matter

• Exploring innovative learning culture in the newsroom

• Jimmy Lai still imprisoned (HK Free Press)

• Op-Ed from Jimmy Lai’s son in NYT (September 2023)

• SCMP to be taken over by Chinese government?

• HKFP section on press freedom and censorship

• ‘We fought the good fight’: journalists in Hong Kong reel from assault on media (Guardian)

• Hong Kong police attack and detain journalists covering protests (Committee to Protect Journalists)

• Protesters Given Prison Terms for Beating [China’s state news media] Reporter at Hong Kong Airport (NYT)

• Protesters read from banned books in Florida (NPR)

• extra - "Fake News," Lies and Propaganda: How to Sort Fact from Fiction (UMich)

• extra - A Brief History of Fake News (UCSB)