Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, an author and theorist who broke new ground in the realm of queer theory, has died.

Intrigued by the gender and sexual divisions implemented by society, Sedgwick’s work sought to dissect the forces at play in developing a person’s sexuality. And, also, the forces that repressed people who didn’t fit into a normative mold.

One of her most influential works, The Epistemology of the Closet, brought the so-called gay closet into a new light and argued that it’s a social construction erected to suppress those with same-sex desires. Try as those subjects might, that closet will travel with them wherever they go, until the moment they dismantle it by coming out to strangers, colleagues and families.

Sedgwick penned another incredible book in 1999, A Dialogue on Love, in which she described her battle against breast cancer. Unfortunately, it’s precisely that cancer that claimed her life this week. She was 58.