Pioneer of queer studies and Shakespeare scholar who related existing texts to current issuesAlan Sinfield,who has died aged 75, pioneered queer studies in Britain and added new dimensions to the understanding of Shakespeare. He made complex theoretical ideas accessible both in his teaching at the University of Sussex and in his writing, and continually relating his readings of past texts to issues in the present.
Much of his work,ranging from Elizabethan drama to well-liked culture, reaches beyond academia. It encompasses postwar literature, or culture and politics; 20th-century theatre; Oscar Wilde,Tennyson and contemporary pop music. Running through it all is his concern with the relationships between cultural forms and political and economic power; with social exclusion and sexual identity; and with the collective potential to subvert or transform society and its cultures.
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Source: guardian.co.uk