The Pharmakon in Fiction | Episode 39

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Photo of Sheung Wan by Yue WU on Unsplash

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: Sheung Wan ii” in A Hong Kong Story.

Table of Contents

A full AI-created transcript can be accessed on the web version.

Keywords:

• Derrida – Plato’s Pharmacy (in Dissemination) & the Pharmakon [ φάρμακον ]

  o   Remedy & Poison (also scapegoat, etc.)

  o   Plato on the Pharmakon – Truth within and exterior to philosophy (truth)

  o   Mis-readings / translations

  o   Doubling of writing  indeterminacy

  o   Dichotomies

  o   Speech vs Writing

  o   Self / ontology

• Tensions in philosophy

• Playing with the concept in fictions – Eileen Chang Lust, Caution

• Place & Space focus - Sheung Wan

Texts:

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• Derrida - Plato’s Pharmacy in Dissemination

• Eileen Chang - Lust, Caution (with Ang Lee commentary)

• Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet

• Ackbar Abbas - Hong Kong: culture and the politics of disappearance

• Lois Lowry - The Giver

• Great guide from University of Hawaii on Plato’s Phaedrus

• Music philosophy professor Michael Cobussen on Pharmakon

• Pharmakon and the Machine: applications to interpretations of AI and post-human

• Novel Pharmakon by Dirk Wittenbon

• Critique of Derrida’s “privileging” of writing over speech

• Kate Jones
  on Ambiguous endings

• Nation, Topography, and Historiography: Writing Topographical Histories in Hong Kong

• More on Sheung Wan:

  • https://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/explore/neighbourhoods/old-town-central/time-traveller.html

    https://randomwire.com/streets-of-sheung-wan/

    https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/community/article/2130764/how-sheung-wan-became-heart-chinese-entrepreneurship-hong

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/bishopjordan/2016/06/06/sheung-wan-hong-kongs-coolest-neighborhood/?sh=2dd110b429bb

    https://www.landmark.hk/en/visit/around-central/western-market