Gillian Rosemary Rose (née Stone; 20 September 1947 – 9 December 1995) was a British philosopher and writer. Rose held the chair of social and political thought at the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands (county), West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded i ...

until 1995. Rose began her teaching career at the

University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...

. She worked in the fields of philosophy and sociology. Her writings include''The Melancholy Science, Hegel Contra Sociology, Dialectic of Nihilism, Mourning Becomes the Law'', and ''Paradiso,'' amongst others. Notable facets of her work include criticism of

neo-Kantianism In late modern continental philosophy, neo-Kantianism (german: Neukantianismus) was a revival of the 18th-century philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The Neo-Kantians sought to develop and clarify Kant's theories, particularly his concept of the "thin ...

post-modernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...

, and

political theology Political theology is a term which has been used in discussion of the ways in which theological concepts or ways of thinking relate to politics. The term ''political theology'' is often used to denote religious thought about political principled qu ...

along with what has been described as "a forceful defence of

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...

's speculative thought."

Early life and education

Gillian Rose was born in London into a non-practising

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

ish family. Shortly after her parents divorced, when Rose was still quite young, her mother married another man, her stepfather, with whom Rose became close as she drifted from her biological father. These aspects of her family life figured in her late memoir ''Love's Work: A Reckoning with Life'' (1995). Also in her memoir, she writes that her "passion for philosophy" was bred at age 17 when she read

Pascal Pascal, Pascal's or PASCAL may refer to: People and fictional characters * Pascal (given name), including a list of people with the name * Pascal (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name ** Blaise Pascal, Fren ...

's ''

Pensées The ''Pensées'' ("Thoughts") is a collection of fragments written by the French 17th-century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. Pascal's religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the ''Pensées'' was in many ways h ...

'' and

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

's ''

Republic A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...

''. Rose attended Ealing Grammar School and went on to

St Hilda's College, Oxford St Hilda's College is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college is named after the Anglo-Saxon Saint, Hilda of Whitby and was founded in 1893 as a hall for women; it ...

, where she read PPE. Taught philosophy by Jean Austin, widow of the philosopher

J. L. Austin John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was a British philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, perhaps best known for developing the theory of speech acts. Austin pointed out that we u ...

, she later described herself as bristling under the constraints of Oxford-style philosophy. She never forgot Austin remarking in class, "Remember, girls, all the philosophers you will read are much more intelligent than you are." In a late interview, Rose commented of philosophers trained at Oxford, "It teaches them to be clever, destructive, supercilious and ignorant. It doesn't teach you what's important. It doesn't feed the soul." She graduated with upper second-class honours. Before beginning her Doctor of Philosophy at St. Antony's College, Oxford, she studied at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and the Free University, Berlin.

Work

Rose's career began with a dissertation on

Theodor W. Adorno Theodor W. Adorno ( , ; born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund; 11 September 1903 – 6 August 1969) was a German philosopher, sociologist, psychologist, musicologist, and composer. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of criti ...

, supervised by the Polish philosopher

Leszek Kołakowski Leszek Kołakowski (; ; 23 October 1927 – 17 July 2009) was a Polish philosopher and historian of ideas. He is best known for his critical analyses of Marxist thought, especially his three-volume history, '' Main Currents of Marxism'' (1976). ...

, who wryly spoke to her of Adorno as a third-rate thinker. This dissertation eventually became the basis for her first book, ''The Melancholy Science: An Introduction to the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno'' (1978). She became well known partly through her critiques of postmodernism and post-structuralism. In ''Dialectic of Nihilism'' (1984), for instance, she leveled criticisms at

Gilles Deleuze Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how ...

, and

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...

. Later, in her essay "Of Derrida's Spirit" in ''Judaism and Modernity'' (1993), Rose critiqued Derrida's ''Of Spirit'' (1987), arguing that his analysis of Heidegger's relation to Nazism relied in key instances on serious misreadings of Hegel, which allowed both Heidegger and Derrida to evade the importance of political history and modern law. In an extended "Note" to the essay, Rose raised similar objections to Derrida's subsequent readings of

Hermann Cohen Hermann Cohen (4 July 1842 – 4 April 1918) was a German Jewish philosophy, philosopher, one of the founders of the University of Marburg, Marburg school of neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be "probably the most important Jewish ph ...

and

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...

, singling out his notion of the "mystical foundation of authority" as centrally problematic. Her first academic appointment was as a lecturer in sociology in 1974 at the School of European Studies (the

). In 1989, Rose left Sussex for the

when a colleague was unexpectedly promoted over her. Inquiring about the promotion with economist

Donald Winch Donald Norman Winch, (15 April 1935 – 12 June 2017) was a British economist and academic. He was Professor of the History of Economics at the University of Sussex from 1969 to 2000, and its Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Arts and Social Studies) from 1 ...

, the then pro-vice-chancellor, he told her that her future at the institution was not bright: "He said to me that I was working in a contextual manner and that the future belonged to those whose work was acceptable to the Government, to industry and to the public." Her chair at Warwick in Social and Political Thought was created for her and she was encouraged to bring her funded PhD students with her. She held her position at Warwick until her death in 1995. As part of her thinking into the Holocaust, Rose was engaged by the Polish Commission for the Future of

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

in 1990, a delegation which included theologian

Richard L. Rubenstein Richard Lowell Rubenstein (January 8, 1924 – May 16, 2021) was a theologian, educator, and writer, noted particularly for his path-breaking contributions to post-Holocaust theology and his socio-political analyses of surplus populations an ...

and literary critic David G. Roskies, among others. She wrote about her experience of this commission in her memoir ''Love's Work'' and in ''Mourning Becomes the Law'' and ''Paradiso''. One of her colleagues on the commission, Marc H. Ellis, has written about Rose's experience as well:

At a crucial moment in our deliberations on the historical knowledge of the Polish guides, Rose spoke, out of turn and off the subject, of the nearness of God. This was a violation of etiquette, and worse. Rose was suggesting that the anger of these delegates, for the most part Holocaust scholars and rabbis, was a retrospective one that, paradoxically sought the Holocaust past as a safe haven from inquiries of the present conduct of the Jewish people.

''Love's Work'' (1995)

Rose's memoir, ''Love's Work'', detailing her background, maturation as a philosopher, and years-long battle with ovarian cancer, was a bestseller when it was published in 1995. "She has, hitherto, been a respected, weighty, but lone voice among a specialised readership," wrote Elaine Williams at the time, " utshe has, since her illness, been driven to write philosophy which has created ripples of excitement among a wider critical audience." Marina Warner, writing for the ''London Review of Books'', said " 'Love's Work''provokes, inspires and illuminates more profoundly than many a bulky volume, and confronts the great subjects...and it delivers what its title promises, a new allegory about love." In a review in ''The New York Times'', upon the publication of the U.S. edition of the book, Daniel Mendelsohn wrote, "'Love's Work' is a raw but always artfully wrought confrontation with the 'deeper levels of the terrors of the soul'" ''Love's Work'' was re-published by NYRB Books in 2011, in the NYRB Classics series, with an introduction by friend and literary critic Michael Wood and including a poem by

Geoffrey Hill Sir Geoffrey William Hill, FRSL (18 June 1932 – 30 June 2016) was an English poet, professor emeritus of English literature and religion, and former co-director of the Editorial Institute, at Boston University. Hill has been considered to be ...

, which he had dedicated to her. In a review of the re-publication, in ''The Guardian'', Nicholas Lezard commented, "I struggle to think of a finer, more rewarding short autobiography than this."

Philosophy

''The Melancholy Science'' (1978)

Rose's first book, ''The Melancholy Science'', is a text that shows Adorno’s most significant contribution to the sociology of culture is a Marxist aesthetic. Rose traces Adorno's Marxist critique of philosophy through the works of various philosophers such as Hegel, Kierkegaard, Husserl and Heidegger and essays on Kafka, Mann, Beckett, Brecht and Schönberg. She posits that Adorno offers a ‘sociology of illusion’ that rivals structural Marxism as well as phenomenological sociology and that of the Frankfurt School.

''Hegel Contra Sociology'' (1981)

Her second book, ''Hegel Contra Sociology,'' describes Hegel's criticism of Kant and Fichte and, subsequently, Weber, Durkheim, and other sociological traditions that arise from “neo-Kantian” thinkers.

''Dialectic of Nihilism'' (1984)

Rose's third book, ''Dialectic of Nihilism'', is a reading of

post-structuralism Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critique ...

through the lens of law. Specifically, she attempts to read a number of thinkers preceding and constituting post-structuralist philosophy against Kant's "defense of the 'usurpatory concept' of freedom", that is, his answer to the question of "How

eason Eason is a surname. The name comes from Aythe where the first recorded spelling of the family name is that of Aythe Filius Thome which was dated circa 1630, in the "Baillie of Stratherne". Aythe ''filius'' Thome received a charter of the lands of F ...

is to justify its possession" of freedom "through ''pure'' reason, systematically arranged." Rose's primary foci are Martin Heidegger, to whom she devotes three chapters, and Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, to whom she devotes one chapter apiece. In addition, however, she scrutinises a few of the neo-Kantians (

Emil Lask Emil Lask (25 September 1875 – 26 May 1915) was a German philosopher. A student of Heinrich Rickert at Freiburg University, he was a member of the Southwestern school of neo-Kantianism. Biography Lask was born in Austrian Galicia, as a son ...

, Rudolf Stammler, and

Henri Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson

, and

Ferdinand de Saussure Ferdinand de Saussure (; ; 26 November 1857 – 22 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is widel ...

and

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthro ...

. Her central argument is that with the post-structuralists a "newly insinuated law sdissembled as a nihilistic break with knowledge and law, with tradition in general." Describing this situation in the case of Foucault, Rose writes, "like all nihilist programmes, this one insinuates a new law disguised as beyond politics." Concomitantly, Rose contends that similar fates befall the neo-Kantians and other thinkers who try to transcend or ignore the problems of law. According to Rose, the neo-Kantians seek to resolve the Kantian antinomy of law "by drawing an 'original' category out of the '' Critique of Pure Reason'', be it 'mathesis', 'time', or 'power'", yet remain unable to do so because " is mode of resolution ... depends on changing the old sticking point of the unknown categorical imperative into a new vanishing point, where it remains equally categorical and imperative, unknowable but forceful"; while other thinkers—including Lévi-Strauss and Henri Bergson—"fall into the familiar transcendental problem" wherein the "ambiguity in the relation between the conditioned and the precondition is exploited." The philosopher

Howard Caygill Howard Caygill (born 1958) is a British philosopher. He has held the position of Professor of Modern European Philosophy at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP), Kingston University since 2011. Previously he had taugh ...

—also Rose's literary executor—has taken issue with her readings of Deleuze and Derrida in ''Dialectic of Nihilism'', going so far as to call some of them "frankly tendentious". In a more critical review of the book, Roy Boyne, too, argues that Rose failed to do justice to these figures. "She operates on the highest plane of abstraction", Boyne writes, "for it is only at that level that the polemic makes any sense. Were she to drop down a level or so, she would see that the position she is so concerned to defend is not under attack from the quarters to which she addresses herself." However, Caygill insists that "Whatever the shortcomings of the readings in ''Dialectic of Nihilism'' and the unfortunate and unnecessary borders it raised between Rose's thought and that of many of her contemporaries, it did mark a further stage in her retrieval of speculative thought." Scott Lash has asserted that the "real weakness of ''Dialectic of Nihilism'' is its propensity toward academic point-scoring", the result of which, according to Lash, is Rose's "devoting some half of its length attempting to discredit the analysts under consideration with their own assumptions, rather than straightforwardly confronting them with her own juridical prescriptions." Yet Lash considers her chapters on Derrida and Foucault to be partial remedies to this issue.

Influence and legacy

Already in 1995,

Rowan Williams Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, (born 14 June 1950) is a Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian and poet. He was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, a position he held from December 2002 to December 2012. Previously the Bish ...

commented, "Gillian Rose's work has had far less discussion than it merits." In the decades following Williams' statement others have reiterated the sentiment. Indeed, scholar of religion Vincent Lloyd comments: Nevertheless, Rose's work has made more explicit inroads among a number of important thinkers, not the least of them Williams, whose revaluation of Hegel in the 1990s has been attributed to Rose's influence. On the philosophy of Hegel, in a text of 1991,

Slavoj Žižek Slavoj Žižek (, ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New Y ...

writes, "one has to grasp the fundamental paradox of the ''speculative identity'' as it was recently identified by Gillian Rose." Žižek here refers to Rose's second book ''Hegel contra Sociology'' (1981); subsequently, his Hegelianism was dubbed "speculative" by Marcus Pound. In turn, Howard Caygill observes of ''Hegel contra Sociology'': "This work revolutionized the study of Hegel, providing a comprehensive account of his speculative philosophy that overcame the distinction between religious ('right Hegelian') and political ('left Hegelian') interpretations that had prevailed since the death of the philosopher in 1832." And the work is still cited in Hegel scholarship. Two of Rose's students,

Paul Gilroy Paul Gilroy (born 16 February 1956) is an English sociologist and cultural studies scholar who is the founding Director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Race and Racism at University College, London (UCL). Gilroy is the 2019 ...

and David Marriott, have emerged as key thinkers of critical race theory and have acknowledged her influence. When

John Milbank Alasdair John Milbank (born 23 October 1952) is an English Anglican theologian and is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Nottingham, where he is President of the Centre of Theology and ...

published ''Theology and Social Theory'' in 1990, he cited Rose as one of the thinkers without whom "the present book would not have been conceivable." Marcus Pound recently found that "Rose was the Blackwell reader for Milbank's ''Theology and Social Theory''. The Rose archives at Warwick include the letters Milbank and Rose exchanged on the subject. In particular she pushed him to clarify the nature of the subject which underpinned ''Theology and Social Theory''. In response Milbank wrote 'The Sublime in Kierkegaard'." Two special issues on Gillian Rose have appeared from scholarly journals. The first, "The Work of Gillian Rose," appeared in 1998 in volume 9, issue 1 of the journal ''Women: A Cultural Review''. It contained contributions from students and friends, including Laura Marcus, Howard Caygill, and Nigel Tubbs, as well as an edited transcription of "two W. H. Smith exercise books containing the notes and observations that osehad been writing...until shortly before her death" in hospital. An essay by literary critic

Isobel Armstrong Isobel Armstrong, (born 1937) is a British academic. She is professor emerita of English at Birkbeck, University of London and a senior research fellow of the Institute of English Studies at the University of London. She is a fellow of the Br ...

, which appeared alongside but not as a part of the special issue, turns on Rose's concept of "the broken middle" and presents a careful and appreciative reading of her work. In 2015 the journal ''Telos'' released a special issue on Rose, gathering responses and critiques to her work from Rowan Williams, John Milbank, Peter Osborne, and Tubbs. In 2019, The Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, London established an annual Gillian Rose Memorial Lecture. The inaugural speaker was professor of philosophy and comparative literature Rebecca Comay.

Death

Rose was diagnosed with

ovarian cancer Ovarian cancer is a cancerous tumor of an ovary. It may originate from the ovary itself or more commonly from communicating nearby structures such as fallopian tubes or the inner lining of the abdomen. The ovary is made up of three different c ...

in 1993. She died in

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...

at the age of 48.Wolf, Arnold Jacob (1997). "The Tragedy of Gillian Rose." ''Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought'' 46, no. 184. She made a

deathbed conversion A deathbed conversion is the adoption of a particular religious faith shortly before dying. Making a conversion on one's deathbed may reflect an immediate change of belief, a desire to formalize longer-term beliefs, or a desire to complete a ...

to Christianity through the

Anglican Church Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...

. (Andrew Shanks notes that "there is evidence, among the papers left behind from her final illness, that at one point oseseriously considered the alternative of Roman Catholicism."Shanks, Andrew (2008). ''Against Innocence: Gillian Rose's Reception and Gift of Faith''. SCM Press. p. 178, note 8.) She left to the library of Warwick University parts of her own personal library, including a collection of essential works on the History of Christianity and Theology, which are marked "From the Library of Professor Gillian Rose, 1995" on the inside cover. Rose is survived by her parents, her sister, the academic and writer

Jacqueline Rose Jacqueline Rose, FBA (born 1949 in London) is a British academic who is Professor of Humanities at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities. Life and work Jacqueline Rose is known for her work on the relationship between psychoanalysis, fem ...

, her half sisters, Alison Rose and Diana Stone, and her half brother, Anthony Stone.

Works

Dissertation

*"Reification as a Sociological Theodor W. Adorno's Concept of Reification and the Possibility of a Critical Theory of Society," University of Oxford (1976)

Books

*''The Melancholy Science: An Introduction to the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno'' (1978) *''Hegel contra Sociology'' (1981) *''Dialectic of Nihilism: Post-Structuralism and Law'' (1984) *''The Broken Middle: Out of Our Ancient Society'' (1992) *''Judaism and Modernity: Philosophical Essays'' (1993) *''Love's Work: A Reckoning With Life'' (1995) *''Mourning Becomes the Law: Philosophy and Representation'' (1996) *''Paradiso'' (1999)

Essays, articles and reviews

*"How Is Critical Theory Possible? Theodor W. Adorno and Concept Formation in Sociology," ''Political Studies'' 24.1 (March 1976), 69–85. *Review of Theodor W. Adorno, ''Negative Dialectics'', in ''The American Political Science Review'' 7.2 (June 1976), 598–9. *Review of Susan Buck-Morss, ''The Origin of Negative Dialectics'' and Zolton Tar, ''The Frankfurt School'', in ''History and Theory'' 18.1 (February 1979), 126–135. *Review of Thomas McCarthy, ''The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas'', in ''British Journal of Sociology'' 31.1 (March 1980), 110–1. *"A ghost in his own machine", review of '' Points...: Interviews, 1974–1994'' and '' Spectres of Marx'' by Jacques Derrida. ''The Times'' 27 July 1995. *"The Final Notebooks of Gillian Rose", ''Women: A Cultural Review'' 9:1 (1998), 6–18, edited by Howard Caygill. *"Beginnings of the Day: Fascism and Representation", paper in ''Modernism, Culture and 'the Jew' '' (1998) he book is dedicated to Rose

Unpublished writings

*"Italian Journey" (uploaded to www.gillianrose.org) *"Your Visit to Auschwitz" (uploaded to www.gillianrose.org)

Notes

External links

Catalogue of Rose's papers
held at the

Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collecti ...

"Obituary from ''Radical Philosophy" by Howard Caygill"Mind the Gap: The Philosophy of Gillian Rose" by Nigel TubbsSermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Christmas Day 1996Harrison Fluss, "The Spiritual Animal Kingdom: On Gillian Roses Hegelian Critique of Bourgeois Society" 2011
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rose, Gillian 1947 births 1995 deaths 20th-century British non-fiction writers 20th-century British philosophers Alumni of St Antony's College, Oxford British women academics British women philosophers Hegelian philosophers British women sociologists Alumni of St Hilda's College, Oxford English Anglicans Academics of the University of Sussex Academics of the University of Warwick Deaths from ovarian cancer 20th-century English historians

Early life and education

Work

''Love's Work'' (1995)

Philosophy

''The Melancholy Science'' (1978)

''Hegel Contra Sociology'' (1981)

''Dialectic of Nihilism'' (1984)

Influence and legacy

Archives

Death

Works

Dissertation

Books

Essays, articles and reviews

Unpublished writings

Notes

Further reading

External links