Rituals in the Making
banner
ritualsinthemaking.bsky.social
Rituals in the Making
@ritualsinthemaking.bsky.social
An NSF-funded project at George Washington University examining changes in religious, funeral, and commemorative practices during COVID-19 pandemic. E-mail: ritualsinthemaking6@gmail.com
Pinned
Go to ritualsinthemaking.com to see more about our research and dispatches from the field.
Rituals in the Making
National Science Foundation Grant Research on Funerary Ritual Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic
ritualsinthemaking.com
Today, we have a wonderful new dispatch piece, curated by Rituals' very own Martha Greenwald, where two vaccination site volunteers in Louisville, Kentucky, Juli Duvall and Michael McWilliams, share their perspectives in honor of the 4-year anniversary.

ritualsinthemaking.com/2025/04/17/l...
April 23, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Good news! For everyone who missed our Public Lecture event, by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, a recording of the event is now available on the C-SPAN website! Thank you again to C-SPAN for broadcasting the event, and we hope you all will take the time to watch.

Link: www.c-span.org/program/publ...
April 8, 2025 at 11:10 PM
4.02.25

As we said the other day: March is over, but our work is not.

#ritualsinthemkaing #gwu #anthropology #covid19 #pandemic
April 2, 2025 at 6:36 PM
3.30.25

For the final installment of our March series, we have a wonderful dispatch by Sarah Wagner, about our dear friends at @ramis_heart, and their 5th Year Annual Lighting Ceremony, which the RIM team attended on March 15th. Please give it a read!

ritualsinthemaking.com/2025/03/31/t...
March 31, 2025 at 6:03 PM
March 30, 2025 at 5:19 PM
March 26, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Thank you to all who attended (and spoke at) our public lecture event by Sheryl Stolberg on March 19th, including Dean Lynn Goldman, Dr. Holden Thorpe, Avery Nennman, Paige Gavin, and Hanaan Khabir, as well as C-SPAN for live coverage of the event! It would not have been as successful without you!
March 25, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Happy Friday! Two members of the Rituals in the Making team, Hanaan Khabir and Avery Nennmann, collaborated on a wonderful new dispatch piece, which is now available on our website!

Enjoy!

Link:
ritualsinthemaking.com/2025/03/14/v...

#ritualsinthemaking #gwu #anthropology #covid19 #pandemic
March 21, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Join us, with the GW Anthropology department, at the Elliot School of International Affairs TODAY at 5:30 PM, for Sheryl Gay Stolberg's public lecture, "Contagion of Mistrust: Jonas Salk, Tony Fauci, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Partisan Backlash Against Public Health."

We hope to see you there!
March 19, 2025 at 8:33 PM
3.11.25

Join the COVID-19 Wall of Memories today at 2 p.m. CT for a panel on memorialization, live-streamed on Facebook. The link will be available below and on our story. We hope to see you there!

--

Link: fb.com/covid19wallofmemories

#ritualsinthemaking #gwu #anthropology #covid19 #pandemic
March 11, 2025 at 5:41 PM
March 9, 2025 at 5:47 PM
"Americans have always been individualistic, and many people did not take kindly to being told to wear a mask or get vaccinated. . . . The concept of this kind of collective altruism is hard to communicate, and public health messaging often fell short."

www.scientificamerican.com/article/on-c...
Where We Are After Five Years of COVID
Public health experts discuss lessons learned from the U.S. response to the COVID pandemic, on topics ranging from school closures to trust in science
www.scientificamerican.com
March 9, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Reposted by Rituals in the Making
NEW: With measles raging in Texas, I asked Bill Cassidy about RFK Jr., who said parents should consult their doctors about vaccines, but vaccination is a "personal" choice.

"If you take the gestalt of it, the gestalt was, ‘Let’s get vaccinated!’” he said.

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/05/u...
Cod Liver Oil? Vaccines? A G.O.P. Skeptic Confronts Kennedy’s Fine Line on Measles
After voting to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary, Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor and Republican of Louisiana, is embracing “the gestalt” of Kennedy’s measles response.
www.nytimes.com
March 6, 2025 at 2:20 AM
"Five years later, though the world has been scarred by all that death and illness, it is considered hysterical to narrate the history of the pandemic by focusing on it."
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/o...
Opinion | The Covid Alarmists Were Closer to the Truth Than Anyone Else
www.nytimes.com
March 7, 2025 at 9:46 PM
March 7, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Rituals in the Making is pleased to host Sheryl Stolberg, New York Times correspondent, for her keynote address on politics and public health. The event marks the fifth anniversary of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To attend, please register in advance using the link below.
Contagion of Mistrust: A Public Lecture by Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Join us for our 2025 Rituals in the Making keynote address with Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Washington correspondent for The New York Times.
buff.ly
March 3, 2025 at 8:52 PM
Day 3: Excerpt from “A Present Absence” by Roy. R. Grinker. Visit our website, buff.ly/bUzWNuI, to read this dispatch and many other examples of our research.

#ritualsinthemaking #gwu #anthropology #covid19 #pandemic
March 3, 2025 at 8:46 PM
Day 2
March 2, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Throughout March, “Rituals in the Making” will be noting resonant and notable
moments from the past five years. We will be digging into our research and writing
as well as the work of other organizations, projects, and individuals.
March 1, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Reposted by Rituals in the Making
Must read. Basically says the pandemic was as terrible as the 'alarmists' predicted but "our memories are so warped by denial, suppression and sublimation that Covid revisionism no longer even qualifies as news."
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/o...
Opinion | The Fifth Anniversary of the Covid Pandemic Reveals New Lessons (Gift Article)
Five years since a novel virus spread everywhere, it’s hard to remember what the beginning was like.
www.nytimes.com
February 27, 2025 at 4:31 AM
David Wallace-Wells: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/o...

"Five years later, though the world has been scarred by all that death and illness, it is considered hysterical to narrate the history of the pandemic by focusing on it."
Opinion | The Fifth Anniversary of the Covid Pandemic Reveals New Lessons
Five years since a novel virus spread everywhere, it’s hard to remember what the beginning was like.
www.nytimes.com
February 27, 2025 at 3:25 AM
Reposted by Rituals in the Making
Ireland: Number of chronic absences from school has more than doubled post-COVID.

"More than a quarter of primary schoolchildren, and more than a fifth of post-primary students missed at least a month of school days during the 2022/23 school year."

Source: archive.md/Z3eb9
February 24, 2025 at 5:10 AM
Our most recent dispatch from our More Than a Healthcare Hero Initiative: ritualsinthemaking.com/2025/02/02/a...
“All of Us Were Willing to Run into the Fire”
Date Posted: Feb 2, 2025. An interview with Dr. Ashwin Shankar on Forging Community Bonds and Pediatric Healthcare during the COVID-19 Pandemic
ritualsinthemaking.com
February 24, 2025 at 10:16 PM