Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century that has had a deep impact on Theology and Religious Studies. The reading group seeks to engage with some of the fundamental concepts of phenomenology that underlie much work in Theology and the Phenomenology of Religion. This term we hope to read two texts. The recent new realism and speculative materialism has questioned the correlationalism (between consciousness and world) in Phenomenology. To get some perspective on this critique we will read Quentin Meillassoux’s After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (London: Continuum 2009). After this short book we will read Zizek’s Less than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism (London and New York: Verso, 2012).