• Colour drawing of a staged theatrical scene framed by two symmetrical classical structures with niches containing gilded statues, flanked by trees. At the centre, a painted backdrop shows an island within an archipelago, with a visible settlement; in the foreground, a vessel approaches the shore. Four figures stand before the backdrop holding branches and other objects. The composition is enclosed within a thin rectangular gold border.
Operation Cue atom bomb test, 1955, Science Photo Library

Death Drive

Here, Matt Ffytche introduces a special issue of Psychoanalysis and History, Afterlives of the Death Drive. The death drive has proved relevant to so many different intellectual contexts in part because of the extravagance, or allusiveness of Freud’s original gesture…