Bakersfield Area Skeptics Society Monthly Meetup

Isabella Kasselstrand, Ph.D., lecturer in Sociology at CSUB, will talk about culturally situated meanings of religious beliefs and belonging, focusing specifically on Scandinavia where a majority of people are church members, support public school graduations in church, and take part in traditionally religious rituals - even though they do not believe in God or a supernatural power.

Dr. Kasselstrand was awarded her B.S. in Economics (2008) and M.A. in Sociology (2009), both from CSUB. In November 2013, she completed her Ph.D. at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, with a dissertation entitled "'Tell the Minister Not to Talk About God:' A Comparative Study of Secularization in Protestant Europe." Her research focuses primarily on patterns of religious decline and remaining, non-religious, functions of churches in secularizing societies.