Death and Mastery

Eric Santner, University of Chicago:
In this masterful and enlivening study of the ways in which the concepts of death and mastery have been elaborated in Freudian and post-Freudian social theory, Ben Fong has given us the means to think about human nature and human community now, under conditions of advanced capitalism, without succumbing to the scientism of the new neurobiology or to the social constructivism of recent historicist social and cultural theory. The argument turns on the ambiguity embedded in the notion of mastery: on the one hand, the capacity to engage creatively with the world, to master the tasks of living a historical form of life; on the other, the temptation to enslave, to compel others to exercise this competence in one's place. Fong is able to analyze with remarkable lucidity a complex array of individual and social phenomena by fleshing out the imbrications of these twinned responses to what Freud called the drives' demand for work. Fong makes abundantly clear that drive theory and social theory are strongest when thought together.

Mari Ruti, University of Toronto:
At various moments in Death and Mastery, the writing is so down to earth as to make the reader smile: it is wonderful to see academic ideas expressed so matter-of-factly, without the usual rhetorical acrobatics.

Noëlle McAfee, Emory University:
Benjamin Fong offers the most cogent and compelling case I've encountered in defense of the death drive, showing that it should not be equated with violence and destruction but, to the contrary, seen as a means for individuation and life.