London Review Bookshop Podcast Love’s Work: James Butler, Rebekah Howes & Rowan Williams
Jul 10, 2024
James Butler, a contributing editor at the LRB, Rebekah Howes from the University of Winchester, and former Archbishop Rowan Williams dive deep into Gillian Rose’s influential work. They reflect on her philosophical legacies, focusing on how her ideas challenge conventional wisdom. The conversation explores the everyday struggles of ordinary lives, navigating power dynamics in relationships, and the importance of confronting personal and societal suffering. With insights on love, uncertainty, and the transformative power of philosophy, the discussion inspires profound reflection.
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Clarity Defines Love's Work
- Gillian Rose's work challenges and enriches philosophical thought through its clarity and urgency rather than stylistic difficulty.
- Love's Work is a reckoning with life, embracing complexity in sickness and death without dominating these themes.
Characters Reflect Misrecognition
- The characters in Love's Work are portraits of real people negotiating misrecognition and living in hell.
- The last chapter reframes these encounters, inviting readers to understand philosophy as a negotiation between the universal and the particular.
Patience as Liberation
- Love's Work leads toward a deeply engaged patience that embraces risk and learning instead of passivity.
- This patient engagement offers philosophical and spiritual liberation, rooted in a subtle but persistent religious subtext.