In this special issue, contributors argue that addiction is at the forefront of current global conversations on biopolitics, yet its history is only beginning to be uncovered. By reassessing what counts as addiction and where we might find it, the authors present new approaches to the concept that addiction can be an expression of devotion (as its Latin etymology suggests), can provide authorial inspiration, or can be defined by legal bias and institutional structures, a phenomenon largely devised to exclude or target racialized groups (as with imperial and colonial attitudes toward drug use).