"A provocative and timely intervention, this book reinvigorates Deleuze and Guattari's assemblage thinking through the twin lenses of schizoanalysis and affect. It offers a powerful conceptual toolkit for examining how desire, affect, and assemblage shape the spatial dynamics of contemporary life." -- Gordon Waitt, Emeritus Professor of Human Geography, University of Wollongong, Australia "Ian Buchanan is one of Deleuze's most wide-ranging interpreters, and in this book, he shows how Deleuze and Guattari's well-known but often misunderstood theory of "affect" must be grounded in their assemblage theory, and more generally, in their project of schizoanalysis. Along the way, Buchanan provides comparisons with theorists such as Jameson, Massumi, and Delanda, and perhaps more importantly, shows the increasing relevance of affect theory to our contemporary politics. An essential read." -- Daniel Smith, Professor of Philosophy, Purdue University, USA " Assemblage Theory and Affect is one of those rare books of theory that does more than explain what was meant and instead provides a map for how one might think differently using concepts that never arrive fit for purpose. Buchanan tackles the complex history of affect theory, and by returning to its roots in Deleuze and Guattari's work, re-orients a whole critical literature. Asking what happens if we see affect as the capacity to meet the day, Buchanan carefully shows that affect theory (and its relation to assemblage) might be one of the more useful ways of thinking about life and action in these troubled times.

The book takes the reader back to the original formulation of affect in the work of Deleuze and Guattari, and shows how the affect theory that we have assumed as emanating from their work bears only passing resemblance. In its articulation of affect's relationship to desire, both grounded through Deleuze and Guattari's blueprint of the assemblage, Assemblage Theory and Affect is a vibrant, thoughtful and often humorous request to think affect again." -- Greg Thompson, Professor of Learning Research and Director of the Institute for Learning Sciences & Teacher Education, Australian Catholic University, Australia "Both assemblage theory and the concept of affect have been major drivers in new research in the humanities and social sciences, but just what do we mean by 'assemblage' and 'affect' and how might these terms be used in ways that are rigorous and genuinely transformative? Ian Buchanan has provided a guide, a genealogy and a provocative argument that should be necessary reading for anyone interested in the stakes of knowledge and method in the twenty-first century." -- Cecile Parrish Memorial Chair of English Literature, Monash University, Australia.