Type

Text

Type

Dissertation

Advisor

Diedrich, Lisa | Hesford, Victoria | O'Byrne, Anne | Wilson, Elizabeth A. | Hiemstra, Nancy

Date

2017-12-01

Keywords

Gender identity | American studies | United States | cultural studies | Science—History | environmental studies | feminist science studies | gender studies | history of science

Department

Department of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies

Language

en_US

Source

This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/11401/78236

Publisher

The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.

Format

application/pdf

Abstract

In this dissertation, I propose an immuno-environmental model of biomedical phenomena in which human and nonhuman entities participate actively in vital material-semiotic assemblages with discursive and material capacity in which indeterminacy and uncertainty are always at work. In order to demonstrate my argument, I examine a variety of documents as sociocultural archives of expert and non-expert immunological knowledge practices, including scientific articles and medical studies, fictional and non-fictional accounts, social media, blogs and news reports. My project is therefore invested both in the ontological and in the epistemological foundations of immunological knowledge, which I contend collapse the boundaries between the self-contained, autonomous (human) subject and its physical and social surroundings. I use case studies of two chronic health conditions to examine in detail how immunological assemblages are enacted and materialized: celiac disease, an autoimmune gastrointestinal disorder, and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, an idiopathic environmental syndrome. | 263 pages

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