The first collection to provide an overview of the well-known psychoanalytic theory of the death drive in literary and cultural theory, this book features contributions from a range of prominent scholars working in the area of literature, philosophy, and psychanalysis.

After Freud's initial theorization, the death-drive has been re-interpreted by various psychoanalytic thinkers (including Melanie Klein, Jacques Lacan, and Slavoj Zizek), philosophers (Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean Baudrillard), political theorists (Judith Butler), queer theorists (Laurent Berlant, Lee Edelman), and posthumanists (Rosi Braidotti).

This volume brings together some of the leading thinkers and theorists of the death-drive as a psychological, aesthetic, and theoretical principle in literary and cultural theory, examining texts by writers such as Plato, Henry James, and Ezra Pound.