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...

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...

4.02.25 As we said the other day: March is over, but our work is not. #ritualsinthemkaing #gwu #anthropology #covid19 #pandemic

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...

3.30.25 #ritualsinthemaking #gwu #anthropology #covid19 #pandemic

3.26.25 #ritualsinthemaking #gwu #anthropology #covid19 #pandemic

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!

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

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!

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

3.9.25 #ritualsinthemaking #gwu #anthropology #covid19 #pandemic

"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...

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...

"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...

3.7.25 #ritualsinthemaking #gwu #anthropology #covid19 #pandemic

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.

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

Day 2

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.

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...

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."

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

Our most recent dispatch from our More Than a Healthcare Hero Initiative: ritualsinthemaking.com/2025/02/02/a...

More on Covid memorialization efforts in the digital space: www.cnn.com/2024/05/18/u...

Public health teams are being gutted, imperiling work to safeguard organ donation and prevent maternal and infant death. “We are hollowing out our government in a way that is going to hurt people and is going to get people killed.” https://propub.li/4370xr2

Go to ritualsinthemaking.com to see more about our research and dispatches from the field.

Should note that Let This Radicalize You discusses collective memorialization in the context of COVID-19 and incarcerated people who died of the disease. This is a great piece about that topic. I mostly stitch in silence but listening to the mixtape today. transformativespaces.org/2020/10/07/l...

Restoring hearts today. We will never forget. ❤️

Love these! We have a limited supply of these beautiful candles available to buy. (Details in video) We'll be lighting one at our Covid19 National Day of Reflection event on 9th March at around 11:20am. We're live streaming through Facebook, and would love you to light a candle with us. ❤️

Young scientists, doctors, and public health professionals who earned prestigious federal fellowships are getting the axe from Trump. Is this how to plan for the next pandemic? “We owe them a debt of gratitude, not a pink slip,” former agency heads said. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/u...

RFK Jr., addressing HHS employees for the first time, said his inquiry into the causes of chronic disease will include the childhood vax schedule and psychiatric drugs. But he also showed his spiritual side. w/ @by-cjewett.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/u...

Ed Yong on his experience of pandemic journalism, on the panic-neglect cycle, empathy, and hummingbirds – those "small bundles of sass and fury." Wonderful interview -- take a listen/read: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/m...