After the untimely death of Prince, the staff at Oxford University Press asked me to write a reflection on his legacy. This piece attempts to connect my sadness with our historical consciousness of the 1980s.

What the students marveling at their teachers’ grief don’t–maybe can’t–understand is that Prince was more than just a guy who sold a lot of records and wore a lot of purple. For people left out of the 1980s neoconservative vision of what America should be, Prince was a beacon, guiding us through this thing called life.