Erik Olin Wright leaves behind an incredible moral and intellectual legacy.
Ifirst met Erik Olin Wright when I arrived in the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a Ph.D. student in the summer of 2016. Having already read most of his work I could not wait to meet him in person. Indeed, the chance to study under Wright was the main reason for my being there.
Upon arriving at his office, I was received with a warm smile and a hug. Erik, as he asked to be called, graciously offered to mentor my research. What stood out about him,even in that first encounter, was not just his brilliant mind but his generosity, kindness, and warmth—often not the case with academics of his stature.
There are many brilliant minds, but they do not necessarily make good teachers. Wright managed to be both.
Wright was a distinguished sociologist and, from 2011 to 2012, president of American Sociological Association. He died on January 23, 2019, after months of fighting acute myeloid leukemia. Days before his death, he wrote a long blog post that read in part:
“[D]ear friends, what we’ve known for a while is in fact the case. I have a very limited time left in this marvelous form of stardust which I’ve been talking about over the past few months. I don’t feel any dread. I want to assure you that I don’t feel fear about this. It seems very petty to complain about the eventual dissipation of my stardust back into the stardust of the cosmos after having lived 72 years in this extraordinary form of existence.”