Gillian Rose

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the passing of Gillian Rose, philosopher, scholar and teacher. She is much missed by all whom she graced.

London Consortium is holding a special conference today to discuss the legacy and impact of her life’s thought. Unfortunately, there is not much substantial material on the web that deals with her writings. I encourage everyone to sign up on the Wikipedia site to help build a page on Gillian Rose.

There is even less audio material. I don’t recall many of her students taping her infrequent lectures, but I have found a pair of interviews that Gillian did with RTE, an Irish radio station, shortly before her death. Click here to access the (Dialogue) programme’s page then scroll down and click on the relevant dates (April 9th and 16th).

London Consortium is holding a special conference on the 9th of December 2005 to discuss the legacy and impact of her life’s thought.

As a tribute to the philosopher Gillian Rose on the 10th anniversary of her death, the London Consortium and the ICA present an evening exploring the idea of philosophy as radical thought. At a time when the project for radical political transformation has been shaken to its core, what should be the role of the radical philosopher? Should it be the ethical work of mourning, or keeping the radical political project alive through critique?

Speakers include: The Rt Revd Rowan Williams, Jacqueline Rose, and Howard Caygill. David Held will chair the conference.

If you are attending this, come and introduce yourself. I’ll be the one who will be looking jet-lagged from his over-night flight from LA.

The Heaven Select XI is even more invincible tonight and Sir Matt will surely include him straight away

Hugh, courtesy of Red News

Kevin was a friend of mine

Every single one of us here will share that sentiment. He was a friend to each of us in an individually meaningful way and in unimagineable ways which we will struggle to appreciate now that he is no longer with us.

It is impossible to capture who Kevin was and what he meant to us in a short eulogy, or in simple words, but the presence of all of you here gives the clearest indication of the measure of the man and his impact on our lives. As a son, husband, father, relation, friend and work colleague, and active member of this community, Kevin touched different aspects of our lives.

When I met him for lunch on Wednesday, I told him how much I respected him, of how how he had grown from the cheeky, mischief-making schoolboy I met at 16, to become the the responsible father of two so wonderful children and loving husband to Pilar. That family was his universe, around which he devoted his time and energies.

He was also a central member of his working environment, diligent and attentive and much appreciated for his contributions. His activities with the Church and at cathechisim classes also left an indelible mark on the people around him, both young and old.

Despite his many duties and responsibilities, and the superhuman efforts these required, Kevin always made time for much else, for friends and strangers alike: to lend a helping hand, an understanding ear, a consoling shoulder, offer words of advice and encouragement.
With each of his social circles, with his ex-SJI schoolmates, friends
from JC and University, his hockey team-mates, the group of altar boys, Kevin was constantly striving to bring and keep people together. He was our centre, each of the groups’ heartbeat.

In that sense, his generousity and sincerity conquered the limitations of time and the common expectations of the world.

That was Kevin’s secret: he knew this was an imperfect world, sometimes unjust and cruel. Unlike others who would shy away from challenges and retreat into the sanctuary of solitude, Kevin’s recognition of the world’s incompleteness drove him to challenge and mend fissures as best he could, tirelessly, and never discouraged if his efforts failed.

That Kevin, the Kevin that we know now is a reflection of the love he felt for us. The Kevin we know is also a testatment to the loving family that raised him. Philip and Nancy, you did an outstanding job, giving him all the opportunities in life that anyone could wish for. Your tremendous and selfless efforts resulted in an upright, decent and caring man in the truest sense of the word: strong, principled, devoted and loyal, a man of faith. To Mel, he was the typical older brother – sometimes over-bearing and over-protective but ultimately the perfect sibling to share a life with.

If it is any consolation, we share your loss.

The passion with which Kevin engaged with life is also seen in the passion and love he felt for Pilar. Once he met Pilar, his friends
knew that he had met his match, his soul-mate. Their’s was a relationship that crossed continents and cultures and learning a new language was no obstacle for him. With Ale and Maria, we see the very best of this coupling.

In an ideal world, Kevin would see Ale and Maria grow to be the outstanding people they will no doubt become. In that ideal world, he would be my best-man, we would grow old together and share pictures of our grand children. In that world, Kevin would be here to deliver my eulogy.

But we don’t live in that perfect world. And as we struggle to come to terms with the loss of our friend, as we struggle to make sense of this senselessness, it would be wise to recall how Kevin conducted his life and how he would have responded. He would not have been dispirited, he would not have grown bitter or kept a rancourous flame. Let us follow his example, then, and face this in the way that he taught us how thru his examplary living. That would be the rightful way to remember our friend, Kevin Philip Ariken.

Metaphysics, which in Aristotle’s technical terms, is concerned with the relation between the universal ‘nose’ and the sheer snubness of a nose, which no term can capture, this remote-sounding metaphysics is the perplexity, the aporia, at how to find the path from the law of the concept to the peculiarity of each instance, from ‘the nose’ to the snub. If metaphysics is the aporia, the perception of the difficulty of the law, the difficult way, then ethics is the development of it, the diaporia, being at a loss yet exploring various routes, different ways towards the good enough justice, which recognises the intrinsic and the contingent limitations in its exercise. Earthly, human sadness is the divine comedy – the ineluctable discrepancy between our worthy intentions and the ever-surprising outcome of our actions. This comic condition is euporia: the always missing, yet prodigiously imaginable, easy way

Daniel Traister has a short review of Love’s Work on his home page.

Gillian Rose has written a memoir entitled Love’s Work: A Reckoning With Life (New York: Schocken, 1996). Rose is a philosopher who finds herself travelling (“New York, Auschwitz, Jerusalem. My three Cities of the Dead”) and confronted by mortality–her own mortality, as well as that of far too many others. The book sounds as if it ought to be something you don’t want to pick up; it is, instead, something you cannot bear to put down. It is also a book about which–aside from recommending it very highly–one fears trying to say much. It feels light, it looks tiny, and (although it is actually neither) one worries about bruising it too easily. Not, it turns out, a real worry: this is a tough little book, as well as an extraordinarily beautiful one. The grimness of Rose’s themes are, perhaps surprisingly, not as tough as her thought; and the pleasures of this slender volume, perhaps because they are so thoroughly unexpected, would be difficult to exaggerate.

Right, here are some of my death-wishes. Dress code: bermudas and Ts, in this season’s colours, of course. Free drinks all round. No beer, though, only outstanding wine and classy Scotch. Readings from some mildly erotic French 17th/18th century writer. In French, of course.
Some songs by Alex Chilton; better yet, Big Star’s 3^rd / Sister Lovers to be played continuously. Lucky draw: you win some of what I used to own! An elegy by someone, maybe Ariane, to be read by a Rilke look-alike.

If only “death-wish” is indeed the mortality-closing equivalent of a year-turning wish (for example, a birthday wish). But alas, “Todeswunsch” has an entirely different (psychiatric) bent.

Obituary:

“A work is finished when we are no longer able to improve it, though we know it to be inadequate and incomplete. We are so overtaxed by it that we no longer have the power to add a single comma, however indispensable” – E. M. Cioran

I died in my sleep last night; it was the most surprising thing that ever happened to me. My last thought, so I’ve been told, was: “Where’s the snooze button?” Always imagined going in a more spectacular way, dying a good death. Despite his relatively long years, he was unprepared as he was called to account for the final time (“What? Now?”). One hopes he doesn’t pick an argument with God again.

He is fondly remembered by his friends as a stubborn, tempermental little shit who gradually overcame his anxieties and dysfunctional background to “give something back to the community”. A fairly strenuous, unsatisfying early career drove him irrevocably to book. A dry sense of humour matched and fuelled his drinking habits and weltanschauung (“I’m not happy when I’m happy”).

Pressed to say a good word amid an unhealthy chorus of over-enthusiastic farewells, a friend quipped “Argumentative, in the best sense of the term, unbearably serious at times but also unpredictably facetious”. “But don’t quote me on that”. He leaves behind his muse, a pure soul who remedied his dyslexic heart with a stream of comprehension and a multi-lingual tongue. A memorial service will be held at some point, after which his ashes will be scattered somewhere – apt for this peripatetic. He remains wanted by der Polizei Berlin.