Wright, Erik Olin (1947–2019)

Abstract

Erik Olin Wright was a distinguished sociologist and, from 2011 to 2012, president of the American Sociological Association. He died on January 23, 2019, leaving behind an inspiring moral and intellectual legacy and a tremendous oeuvre spanning more than 40 years. He generated a vast panoply of innovative research across an exceptionally wide array of subfields including social stratification, ethnography, political sociology, economic sociology, and sociology of gender. He will be remembered as the most influential theorist of class within the Marxist tradition in the second half of the twentieth century.