The Gillian Rose Memorial Lecture Conference 2025

Price: Registration fee £20/£10 non-KU students

The event is free to KU staff & students, but registration is essential.

Book to attend

Conference abstract

‘Keep your mind in hell, and despair not' - Rose's discovery of Silouan the Athonite's maxim provided the occasion for Love's Work and guided its weaving journey along the quotidian verges of hell and despair. Whether passing through the three cities of death or across the thresholds of stormed paradises, Rose's work refuses any alleviation of the state of perdition. For her, trying to keep the mind out of hell is the real council of despair. And yet the promise that sustains her season in hell is not the humility of Christian hope taught by the Athonite nor the pride of Stephen Daedalus evoked throughout Love's Work, but one of divine comedy or fidelity to the movements of the bacchanalian revel and repose in its sin. The Gillian Rose Memorial Lecture conference this year departs from Love's Work in an exploration of the play of promise and perdition throughout the full range of Rose's philosophical writing.

Programme

DAY 1: Wednesday 18 June 2025, 1:30 - 5:30pm

1.30pm        Registration
2.00pm       Introduction: Howard Caygill (CRMEP, KU)
2.30–3.45   Panel 1 – Afterlives of Rose’s Thought
                    Nigel Tubbs (Winchester University)
                    Nicholas Gane (Sociology, Warwick University)

Short Break

4.00–5.30  Keynote: Elliot Wolfson (Religious Studies, University of                              California, Santa Barbara) Title tba

DAY 2: Thursday 19 June 2025, 10:00 - 5:30pm

10.00-11.30am  Panel 2 –Philosophy or Theology?
                          Elettra Stimilli (La Sapienza, Rome) tbc
                          Andrew Brower Latz (Manchester Grammar)

Short Break

11.45-1.15pm   Panel 3 – Justice? Philosophy, Sociology, Politics
                        Kate Shick (Victoria University of Wellington, NZ) Louis                               Hartnoll (University of Amsterdam)
 

Lunch  

2.30–3.45pm  Panel 4 – Writing and Music: Love’s Work Jenny Turner                               (London Review of Books)
                        Rebekah Howes (Think Learning)                      
                        Ed Cooper (composer, University of Leeds)

Short Break

4.00–5.30pm  Panel 5 – Broken Middle: Hegel and/or                                                         Kierkegaard
                        Robert Scott (Jesus College, University of Cambridge)                               Rachel Pafe (Berlin)

6.00–8.30pm  Reception: October Gallery WC1

The conference is organized with the generous support of the Tom Vaswani Family Trust.