Gerhard Richter argues that inheriting is not the same as yearning for a former presence or nostalgically striving to preserve a supposed philosophical or political identity. Rather, the multiple forms of political, intellectual, cultural and historical transmission emerge here as demanding perpetual interpretation and reinterpretation. Richter shows us that the one who inherits, interprets. 143 individually and evocatively*titled theses including Wrinkles, Inheriting a Feeling, Weight of the World and Making Treasures Speak, illuminate the problem of inheritance from a rich and wide range of perspectives. The theses are in constant dialogue with key figures in Western culture: philosophers such as Heraclitus, Arendt and Derrida; writers such as Montaigne, H lderlin, Kafka and Knausgaard; artists such as Michelangelo, Picasso, Anselm Kiefer and Art Spiegelman; filmmakers such as Jean*Marie Straub; scholars and scientists such as Freud and Einstein; and even pop*cultural phenomena such as The Who and the recent Broadway play The Inheritance. Collectively, the theses examine how we inherit and fail to inherit--in other words, how we relate to the ceaseless intimate conversations with the dead that make us who we are.