Brian Massumi is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 political philosopher

Political philosophy

Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...

 and social theorist

Social theory

Social theories are theoretical frameworks which are used to study and interpret social phenomena within a particular school of thought. An essential tool used by social scientists, theories relate to historical debates over the most valid and reliable methodologies , as well as the primacy of...

. Massumi's research spans the fields of art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

, architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

, political theory, cultural studies

Cultural studies

Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...

 and philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

. He received his Ph.D in French Literature from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 in 1987. He is also known for English-language translations of recent French philosophy

Continental philosophy

Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and...

, including Jean-François Lyotard

Jean-François Lyotard

Jean-François Lyotard was a French philosopher and literary theorist. He is well known for his articulation of postmodernism after the late 1970s and the analysis of the impact of postmodernity on the human condition...

's The Postmodern Condition

The Postmodern Condition

The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge is a short but influential philosophy book by Jean-François Lyotard in which he analyzes the epistemology of postmodern culture as the end of 'grand narratives' or metanarratives, which he considers a quintessential feature of modernity. The book was...

(with Geoffrey Bennington

Geoffrey Bennington

Geoffrey Bennington is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of French and Professor of Comparative Literature, Emory University, Professor of Philosophy at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee , as well as a member of the International College of Philosophy...

), Jacques Attali

Jacques Attali

Jacques Attali is a French economist, writer and senior civil servant.Former adviser to President François Mitterrand and first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, he founded the non-profit organization PlaNet Finance and was nominated President of the Commission for...

's Noise

Noise: The Political Economy of Music

Noise: The Political Economy of Music is a non-fiction book written by French economist and scholar, Jacques Attali.Attali's essential argument in Noise: The Political Economy of Music is that music, as a cultural form, is intimately tied up in the mode of production in any given society. For...

and Gilles Deleuze

Gilles Deleuze

Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...

 and Félix Guattari

Félix Guattari

Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...

's A Thousand Plateaus

A Thousand Plateaus

A Thousand Plateaus is the second book of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, the first being Anti-Oedipus. Written by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, it was translated into English by Brian Massumi...

.

Overview

Massumi collaborates with Erin Manning

Erin Manning (theorist)

Erin Manning is a Canadian cultural theorist and political philosopher as well as a practicing artist in the areas of dance, fabric design, and interactive installation. Manning's research spans the fields of art, political theory, and philosophy. She received her Ph.D in Political Philosophy from...

, director of the Sense Lab, a research-creation laboratory affiliated with Hexagram: Institute for Research/Creation in Media Arts and Technology in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

. They co-edit a book series at MIT Press

MIT Press

The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts .-History:...

 entitled Technologies of Lived Abstraction and are founding members of the editorial collective of the Sense Lab journal Inflexions: A Journal for Research-Creation.

Massumi is currently teaching at Université de Montréal

Université de Montréal

The Université de Montréal is a public francophone research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It comprises thirteen faculties, more than sixty departments and two affiliated schools: the École Polytechnique and HEC Montréal...

, in the Communication Sciences Department. Brian Massumi has taught and lectured internationally at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 (2010), European Graduate School

European Graduate School

The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland is a privately funded graduate school founded by the non-profit European Foundation of Interdisciplinary Studies. Its German name is Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien...

 (2010), University of Helsinki/Turku (2009), Goldsmiths', University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

 (2008) and University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

 (2000). In 2009 / 2010 Brian Massumi was a Senior Scholar in Residence at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University.

Works as author

• Semblance and Event: Activist Philosophy and the Occurrent Arts (MIT Press, 2011) (ISBN 0262134918)
• Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation (Duke University Press, 2002) (ISBN 0822328976)
• A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari (MIT Press, 1992) (ISBN 0262631431)
• First and Last Emperors: The Absolute State and the Body of the Despot (with Kenneth Dean ; Autonomedia, 1993) (ISBN 0936756772)

Work as editor

• A Shock to Thought: Expression After Deleuze and Guattari (Routledge, 2002) (ISBN 0415238048)
• The Politics of Everyday Fear (University of Minnesota Press, 1993) (ISBN 0816621632)
• Technologies of Lived Abstraction MIT Press book series, begun 2009. Co-edited with Erin Manning.
• Theory Out of Bounds University of Minnesota Press book series, 1993-2007. Co-edited with Michael Hardt and Sandra Buckley.

External links

• BrianMassumi.com Personal website with texts and news.
• Brian Massumi. Works. @ Australian National University
  Australian National University
  The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
  
  . Humanities Research Centre.
• Inflexions: A Journal for Research-Creation.
• Brian Massumi and Joel McKim. "Of Microperceptions and Micropolitics" Interview. August 15, 2008.