Gillian RoseA Good Enough Justice

In recent years, Gillian Rose has begun—at last—to be rediscovered as one of the twentieth century’s most significant philosophers and critical theorists. First published in 2012, Kate Schick’s Gillian Rose: A Good Enough Justice was ahead of the curve, particularly in highlighting Rose’s vital importance as a thinker of the Left. In Schick’s account, Rose emerges as a thinker of radical yet difficult politics—eschewing all utopias, easy answers, and intellectual comforts, while refusing melancholy or resignation in favour of a political and critical process of mourning that might ‘become the law.’ Schick proves a lucid and generous guide to Rose’s formidable work, showing with clarity and force why, in our present moment of catastrophe and crisis, Rose’s insights are more urgent than ever.

What Schick achieves in 130 pages is impressive. She offers an exposition of Rose’s thought, grounds it in its formative philosophical influences and sets it in conversation with problems in contemporary political philosophy. And she does this cogently, without significantly sacrificing breadth or depth ... Schick’s work is a compelling invitation to read more Gillian Rose.

Schick’s account is an engaging presentation of Rose’s thought addressed to readers new to her work ... Gillian Rose: A Good Enough Justice provides evidence of the singular power of attraction of Rose’s thought in its capacity to think through the dualisms conditioning social-political actuality and to afford resources for ethical action.

For a multifaceted engagement with Rose’s ideas which goes beyond the concept of impiety... Schick’s Gillian Rose is the book to turn to. Rose’s demanding oeuvre has suffered from an undue neglect which Schick’s refined book will hopefully go some way to remedying. Gillian Rose provides a clear and persuasive argument for Rose’s continuing relevance in relation to debates about trauma and how to respond to it.

This book makes an original and distinctive contribution to political thought.

In this book Kate Schick brings off the seemingly impossible: she renders Gillian Rose's thought clear without losing sight of its subtle profundity and obstinate difficulty. In doing so she makes it apparent just why we might now be more receptive to this thought and what it still has to teach us: that against the already actualised dystopic utopia of the right, and an increased left oscillation between impossible utopia and entire resignation to evil, Rose offers us the abstract contours of a hopeful realism or a realistic hope. Schick rightly edges that vision a little further away from aporia and a little further towards practical realisation. Thereby she has crafted a real contribution not just to scholarship and political theory, but to the future of political practice in the UK and beyond.