December 2025 marks 30 years since the death of Gillian Rose, who held the chair for social and political thought at the University of Warwick between 1989-1995. This symposium, co-hosted by the Centre for Critical Legal Studies and Social Theory Centre, interrogates the political legacy of Gillian Rose’s works–from a historical and critical perspective–by focusing on her often neglected theorisation of the conjunctions between law, Marxism and sociology. Departing from recent revisitations of Rose’s thought, it takes as its central thread the theoretical and political implications of her decisive turn to law, asking whether this turn amounts to a break from her earlier, more Marxian, critical focus on sociological investigation into actuality, or whether it extends or revises this earlier work.
This question will be regarded not only as central to developing existing interpretations of Rose’s work, but also as a lens through which to engage with themes that are of pressing concern to contemporary critical theory, critical legal studies, and sociology. By bringing together scholars thinking with and against Rose in these areas, the symposium offers an opportunity to develop further the critical potentialities of her thought, as well as to reflect on its central tensions, contradictions and limitations.
Schedule
Gillian Rose: History, Marxism, and the Turn to Law
10.30am
Welcome & Coffee
11.00am-1.00pm
Panel 1: Speculative Theory and History of Law
Chair: Rosie Woodhouse
Rose’s Dubious Angel: Speculative Philosophy of History and Critique
Jessica Feely
Phenomenology, Custom and the Actuality of the Legal
Will Spendlove
Gillian Rose, Self-Deception and the Speculative Theory of Law
Tarik Kochi
Lunch: 1.00pm-2.00pm
2.00pm-3.30pm
Panel 2 [online]: Rose and the Project of Critical Marxism
Chair: Jessica Feely
Two Roses or Two Hegels?
Adrian Wilding
On the Critical Theorist Who Becomes a Sociologist
Chris O’Kane
3.45pm-5.15pm
Panel 3: The Turn to Law: Politics and Critique
Chair: Louis Hartnoll
Marxism Between Culture and Law
Nadia Bou Ali
Activity after Subjectivity: On Law and Violence
Rosie Woodhouse
5.15pm-6.00pm
Display of Gillian Rose’s personal archive at the Modern Records Centre, Warwick Library
Drinks
I would be grateful for your clarification of when and where this event is being held.
Thank you and kind regards,
Morning – I would love to attend what I can – but am in South Africa. Can I register for the online parts etc. Not entirely sure of the date though. Probably not reading properly.
Michael