Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

The passing of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick suggests (among other things) that the culture wars of the nineties, which seemed destined to be endless, really are gone. Anyone who studied English lit at an intellectually robust school in those days encountered her work. She pretty much founded the field of queer theory, and like Michel Foucault, a strong influence, used her deep knowledge of two and a half thousand years of Western culture to critique it as thoroughly as possible.

As time passes and her presence becomes less immediate, the work she did will necessarily command less attention. But that work marked a turning point--there's no going back. For those who care about such things enough to have read her work, that matters.