Autoimmunities by Stefan Herbrechter, Michelle Jamieson - 9781138542303

Taylor & Francis

AutoimmunitiesAuthor(s): Stefan Herbrechter, Michelle Jamieson\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd, United Kingdom\nImprint: Routledge\nISBN-13: 9781138542303, 978-1138542303\nSynopsis\nAutoimmunity refers to the phenomenon whereby an organism or body mounts an immune response against its own tissues. As a medical term, autoimmunity is today used to account for any instance in which the body fails to recognise its own constituents as self, an error that results in the paradoxical situation in which self-defense (immunity, protection) manifests as self-harm (pathology). As a result, the very possibility of autoimmunity poses a problem for the notion of immunity and the concept of identity that underpins it: if self-protection can just as readily take the form of self-destruction, then it seems that the very identity of the self, and thus the boundary between self and other, is in question. Conceptually, autoimmunity thus challenges us to think critically about the n.