The violence and destruction hiding behind the obsession with immunity
Mark Neocleous is Professor of the Critique of Political Economy at Brunel University London. He is the author of A Critical Theory of Police Power.
It is difficult to do justice to the breadth and depth of this
book. The sheer multidisciplinary variety of insights offered here,
ranging from neurology and immunology to psychoanalysis and
international law, is frequently dazzling. While the title might
lead one to expect it to operate primarily as a conjunctural
intervention, it is also a valuable archaeology illuminating
various aspects of modern political power.
*Richard Seymour*
Neocleous' provocative interventions into the politics of the
present is guaranteed to make readers think anew about the
body-material and body-politic, our selves as well as sovereignty.
He tells a fascinating (and nervous) story.
*Joanna Bourke*
A masterful survey of one of the key metaphors of our time: the
medical biopicture of the body as a battleground, and the extension
of this metaphor to the "body politic." The twin discourses of
immunity as a literal feature of organic bodily systems, its
counterpart in discussions of sovereignty, warfare, and police
power in the terms of the immune system are brought together here
in a compelling account grounded in the broader concept of
security. The fundamental paradigm of the "Self/Non-Self" as a
biopolitical analogy between medical and social bodies is called
into question by this incisive critique.
*W. J. T. Mitchell, author of Cloning Terror: The War of Images,
9-11 to the Present*
In this scholarly and wide-ranging engagement with one of the most
topical issues of our time, Neocleous provides both an informative
history of the idea of immunity and an astute analysis of the
concept itself and its interweaving usage in medical, legal and
social contexts. But what is most distinctive and revealing in his
study is the axis around which it is shown to revolve: the
imbrication of immunity and security concerns, and their mutually
reinforcing political logics.
*Kate Soper*
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