Gillian Rose: History, Marxism, and the Turn to Law

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.

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The event will be held in Wolfson Research Exchange (REx) on 3rd December 2025.

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PROGRAMME