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Tracking new（and old）relationships between media and medicine, among similar entanglements, this talk explores the contemporary pharmacopeia（bencao, etc.）– now expanded to include a wide range of ordinary drugs and devices. This research grows out of my current projects/collaborations examining the imbrication of digital and pharmaceutical industries and imaginaries（such as：Technopharmacology（2022）; “The Data Pharmacy”）, including cultures of wellness and optimization. Wellness is a 5 trillion-dollar global industry, with East Asian medications and platforms playing an increasingly large role（in terms of revenue, local consumption, global distribution, etc.）. From traditional substances and synthetic supplements to health apps, wearables, and internet pharmacies, this fusion of the algorithmic and pharmacological underscores important shifts related to individual and public health, including new fears and fascinations about the programmability of the body and the self. What I term the data pharmacy includes novel artifacts and arrangements – for which the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution is emblematic – and traces the habitual substances and processes of composition that drive emergent chemical and computational models of（well）being. The webinar will consider the import of recent scholarship about Chinese/Asian medicine for media studies/theory, and offer a set of speculations about contemporary narcocapitalism, smartness, and mood conditioning.

Joshua Neves is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair, Film Studies at Concordia University. His research centers on global and digital media, with a particular focus on China, Asia and the Global South; cultural theory and political theory; problems of development and legitimacy; media urbanism; digital ethnography; cultures of optimization; in/convenience.

Sponsor（s）: Center for Chinese Studies