Any level of study within literature and culture requires an engagement with a wider scope of themes, issues and discourses, and these debates are often centred around key ‘essays’. This book examines a wide range of these essays on topics such as posthumanism, racism, feminism, necropolitics, the Anthropocene, gender, Global North/South, neo- and de-colonialism, universals, borders and limits, interspecies relations, blackness, cosmopolitics, epistemology, addiction.The essays selected represent scholars from a range of disciplines, ethnicities, nationalities and genders, and offer readings relevant across the arts and humanities. Each chapter explains why the essay is of vital importance in our contemporary era, introduces and explains the key themes and theories with which it engages, demystifies any complex content and positions it within wider current debates. Covering all of the essential debates that students and academics must engage with, alongside a close analysis and critique of contemporary seminal essays in the debate, this book will be an essential read for students of literature and culture across the arts and humanities.