Since the early 1980s Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's name has been synonymous with queer theory and gay studies. A field she helped develop with University of California professor Judith Butler, queer theory is concerned primarily with the analysis of cultural texts, literary and nonliterary; gay studies incorporates queer theory but is more broadly focused to include social, political, economic, and personal issues related to homosexuality. Sedgwick is a provocative and influential gay, lesbian, and feminist theorist, an insightful literary critic, an adept and occasionally experimental literary stylist (especially in her later works, which combine autobiographical narrative, poetry, and discursive prose), a poet, and most recently a fiber artist, as well as a committed teacher and sometime political activist. Her work is distinguished for its astute social, cultural, and literary analysis, for its impact on gay lives (the sociocultural conflicts, struggles, and identity politics of gays and lesbians inside and...