The Affect Theory Reader

“The Affect Theory Reader will prove useful to media scholars, less for the discipline-specific methodologies than the concepts variously deployed (by Clough and Gregg, for instance). Indeed, the book’s greatest merit may be that its entrées into both the humanities and social sciences provide practical conceptual tools that prove equally applicable to both fields. . . . The Affect Reader’s comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach makes it a valuable source for a variety of disciplines. . . .” - Brent Strang, InVisible Culture

“The Affect Theory Reader shows how affect can be deployed in a range of frameworks, including the neurological, psychological, social, cultural, philosophical and political, and that there is room for debate among these various fields. . . .” - Todd Cronan, Radical Philosophy

“The collection summarizes, highlights, and exemplifies the ‘affective turn’ in cultural studies of the past 15-20 years.” - John Protevi, Culture Machine

“The Affect Theory Reader is unique. It gathers interesting and provocative articles on affect by well-known theorists and suggestively brings to expression the productive divergence between different philosophical and psychological positions on the subject.” - Erin Manning, author of Politics of Touch: Sense, Movement, Sovereignty

“Written by some of the most interesting and important thinkers in the field, the essays in this superb collection prove how any serious consideration of culture and politics needs to involve serious attention to affect. The Affect Theory Reader covers remarkable ground: from the ontology of ‘future threat’ in Bush’s preemptive politics to the management of workplace affects in the information economy; from the biology of human mimicry to attachments to promises of the ‘good life’ that often cruelly wear out economically precarious subjects. Thoughtfully curated and genuinely interdisciplinary, with contributors from fields ranging from media studies to geography, Melissa Gregg’s and Gregory J. Seigworth’s reader will be indispensable to anyone working in or adjacent to affect theory.” - Sianne Ngai, author of Ugly Feelings

“The Affect Theory Reader is . . . a very valuable resource: it presents essays in conversation in such a way as to provoke further discussion, to hone various definitions and approaches to affect. Gregg and Seigworth frame the conversations in such a way as to draw out the differences between approaches, and their substantial introduction serves as an apt survey of current work. . . . Gregg and Seigworth have assembled an impressive collection of essays and, in their introduction, certainly recognize the limits and scope of such a project. The work is impressive and will certainly catalyze further development in affect theory across disciplines.” - Russ Leo, Reviews in Cultural Theory

“As the first definitive collection of essays on affect studies, The Affect Theory Reader demonstrates how the affective turn in academia has been, and continues to be felt, throughout a variety of disciplines.” - Marcie Bianco, Elevate Difference

“While a reader of the book might be left less rather than more sure of what precisely constitutes ‘affect theory’, or even affect itself, s/he is nevertheless very likely to be moved by the range of both thought and affective styles that make up the volume and constitute what the editors call in the introduction, an ‘inventory of shimmers’ (p11). This incitement to ‘more than discourse’, the capacity ‘to touch, to move, to mobilise readers’ (p24) is exactly what one would hope for from a reader of affect theory, and is what the contributions that make up this collection indeed achieve.” - Michael Goddard, New Formations