ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores disability and the immune self and argues that a "disability approach to immunological thinking can reimagine immunity beyond a reductive binary of self versus non-self towards an openness to the immunologically different". It discusses the role and importance of literary studies as an interdisciplinary field linking with disability studies. The book also explores disability through curatorial practice and outlines guidelines for critical dis/ability curatorial practice through the application of "creative access". It draws on the experience of working with the Lung Ha Theatre Company in Scotland and the mythic story of the Selkie to discuss disability from perspectives of performance and performance practice. It argues that "critical disability studies should acknowledge that disability as an interdisciplinary category per se is both socially and culturally constructed, negotiated, enacted and objectified, that it should embrace the diversity of the field".
