Dr. Kimberly Kirner, a professor at California State University, Northridge, will make a presentation entitled "American Druidry: Understanding Decentralized Development of New Religious Cultures."

About the Presentation: The boundaries scholars put around religion and spirituality can cloud understanding the development of new religions in the Western world, in which people increasingly identify as “spiritual but not religious” or are categorized as “nones.” Within these categories are rapidly growing new world religions that are not as individualistic as they may appear, but which are differently organized than the prototypic Western ideal of “religion.” Using autoethnography, interview data, and text analysis, I examine American Druidry in light of theoretical approaches drawn from ethnoecology, cognitive anthropology, and organizational anthropology in order to shed light on ways we can better understand the development of new decentralized nature-centered relational religions.

About the Presenter: Dr. Kirner is a cultural anthropologist and professor at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), specializing in ethnoecology, medical anthropology, and the anthropology of religion using cognitive approaches. Her research has focused on the relationships between cultural knowledge systems, identity, and community, particularly in relational-centered subcultures. She has conducted academic projects on the political ecology, ethnoecology, and environmental history of the Eastern Sierra Nevada in California; cultural models of health and healing among American Pagans; and nature-centered ritual practices and ethics among contemporary Pagans. Her most recent project is an autoethnography on American Druidry. Kim also works as a practicing medical anthropologist, primarily in developing and evaluating culturally competent, inclusive community-based programs providing educational, social, and mental health services to vulnerable populations. When not working, she can be found hiking, with her horses, or creating mixed-media art.