Alan Sinfield

Alan Sinfield (17 December 1941 – 2 December 2017) was an English theorist in the fields of Shakespeare and sexuality, modern theatre, gender studies, queer theory, queer studies, post-1945 politics and cultural theory. He was a professor of English at the University of Sussex, and the author of a dozen books, and is credited with a leading role in establishing queer studies in mainstream academic studies.

Early life Alan Sinfield was born in Southgate, north London, on 17 December 1941 to Lucy (née Seabright) and Ernest Sinfield; they had one more son, Mark. Ernest Sinfield died serving in the Royal Air Force in 1944, and Lucy began experiencing Parkinson's disease soon after, though she continued working, washing dishes in a cafe in difficult conditions. Growing up in a poor household "made Alan acutely aware of the limitations of the postwar promise to provide equal access to the nation’s resources", and he credited his mother's experience with shaping his political commitment to, in his own words, "disadvantaged people—those who are elderly, infirm, unemployed, black, queer, lone parents, and so on".

Sinfield retired from Sussex in 2004. Sinfield was himself the editor of the journal for a long period. Sinfield's partner from the mid-1990s was Vincent Quinn. Sinfield suffered from Parkinson's disease, and Quinn became his full-time caregiver after the illness began to affect Sinfield's speech.

Sinfield died on 2 December 2017.