The faculty and staff of the School of Education at Humboldt State University mourn the loss of our beloved friend and colleague, Dr. Eric Rofes, who died on June 26, 2006.
Eric Rofes, activist, educator and author of influential books on AIDS and gay culture "Dry Bones Breathe" and "Reviving the Tribe," died Monday in Provincetown, Mass., where he was working on a writing project.
Friends said the cause of death was an apparent heart attack; an autopsy is pending. Rofes, 51, lived in Arcata, Calif., and San Francisco. He is survived by his longtime partner, Crispin Hollings.
An educator by profession, Rofes was a sixth-grade teacher in the 1970s, before becoming editor of the Gay Community News in Boston, the only LGBT newsweekly at the time. He served as director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in the 1980s, then became executive director of the Shanti Project, San Francisco's pioneering housing organization for people with HIV/AIDS.
After receiving his Ph.D. in social and cultural studies from the University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Education, Rofes became an associate professor of education at Humboldt State University in Arcata, where he served until his death. In the summer of 1999, he convened the Boulder Gay Men's Health Summit, the first gathering of its kind.
Of Rofes' 12 books, the two best-known were provocative looks at gay male culture in the face of the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic. "Reviving the Tribe" focused on the post-traumatic stress of gay men who suffered catastrophic losses from AIDS and the necessity of remembering and mourning those who died. "Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities and Subcultures" stated that, for most gay men in the United States, AIDS was no longer an emergency and that a "crisis mentality" was no longer useful. The books were hailed by critics for their sociopolitical analysis mixed with intensely personal ruminations on sex, loss and community.
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