"Kyle Parry's remarkable book offers an eclectic theory of assembly, shifting the focus from political theory to aesthetic and media practices. This is a wide-ranging and original work that keeps shifting angles to produce the sense of vibrant, if problematic, new constellations of the various assemblies that pervade contemporary life. Mindful of both the progressive and reactionary forms that assemblies can take, Parry probes the intensified circulation of digital assemblies in all their ambivalence." - Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley
"An essential (and quite timely) text for anyone working in visual culture, digital studies, art history, material culture, the environmental humanities, media studies, or some assembly therein." - Film Quarterly
"Fitting its title, A Theory of Assembly coalesces studies of media, information, folklore, and art into a significant contribution on the content we create, curate, and share. With an apt balance of sophistication and clarity, Kyle Parry shows why and how 'assembly' is the perfect keyword for contemporary cultural production." - Ryan M. Milner, author of The World Made Meme: Public Conversations and Participatory Media
"Parry's analyses are incisive and texturally lush, making the book a breeze to read . . . [He] masterfully takes assembly as a formative and critical framework for memes and internet discourses." - Journal of Cinema and Media Studies
"The breadth and scope covered in this book is truly impressive, spanning not only different fields like popular culture or the arts but also various decades (from the noughties to the current moment), thus avoiding an excessive focus on the new and the contemporary." - International Journal of Communication
"[A] ground-breaking and much-needed work [...] A Theory of Assembly: From Museums to Memes undertakes the prodigious task of establishing a system of several shifting lenses through which many facets of the contemporary mediascape become visible as an interconnected whole. Not only does the work achieve this goal, but it is itself a delightful example of assembly done well-by presenting museums, memes, reaction to disasters, art-making, art sharing and participation in one and the same context, it brings much needed clarity and comprehension to an otherwise overspecialised and fragmented field of knowledge." - FOCUS: Papers in English Literary and Cultural Studies