Course Reading

A perfect companion to this seminar is the utterly brilliant Christ in Postmodern Philosophy by Frederiek Depoortere. His chapter on Zizek is a great summery of his Christology. Click the link to get the book.

Key primary texts

Zizek has written a phenomenally wider ranging and deep amount of material. I have singled out some texts that have specific relevance to this material.

Video Material

Zizek has a large amount of material online, most of which is well worth watching. Below I’ve included one of his lectures dealing specifically with theology. This is a seminar he gave to an overflowing auditorium in Calvin College.

The Christology of Zizek

Interestingly, one of the most exhilarating and insight readings of Christianity in recent years has arisen, not from within the confines of confessional theology, but from a rather unexpected source.  Almost 30 years ago the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek burst onto the scene with a book that was nothing less than an incendiary intellectual event in the worlds of political theory, philosophy and, unexpectedly, theology. 

Since then, Zizek has continued to connect his radical political philosophy to a reading of Christianity that offers a way of reframing both. 

In this three part course I outline Zizek's singular and surreal contribution to theology.

I also look at how his approach can help us to radically rethink the nature of church and open us up to a type of subversive community that is freed from contemporary ideology. A community committed to the dust of the earth, while operating, quite literally, beyond belief.

This is not simply a close up look at some of Zizek’s ideas, but also a chance to understand more about the theoretical insights of psychoanalytic theory and how they are expressed in pyrotheology. 

I’ve also included a bonus seminar where I explore how Zizek interacts with the work the french anthologist and literary critic, Rene Girard.