It’s been a little over a year since we learned that the National Science Foundation grant supporting the Rituals in the Making project was “terminated, effective immediately.” As we wrote in a recent essay for Anthropology News, just because we lost our funding doesn’t mean we’ve lost our drive to research and write about the lasting effects of pandemic loss on American society.

We’ve been busy this past academic year, presenting our findings at the DDD conference and the American Anthropological Association and publishing several books chapters:

• Rituals in the Making Collective. “Case Study: ‘In America’ COVID Memorial Art Installation on the DC National Mall.” In Practicing Digital Ethnography, edited by Devin Proctor. New York: Routledge, 2026.

• Vicente da Silva, Andreia, and Sarah Wagner. “Ritualising and Memorialising Unjust Death: The Affective Force of COVID Loss in Brazil and the United States.” In Decolonising Death Studies, edited by Panagiotis Pentaris, Stacey Pitsillides, and Hajar Ghorbani. New York: Routledge, 2026.

• Richardson, Sarah L., Sarah E. Wagner, and Ruth E. Toulson, eds. The Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Death. Cambridge Handbooks in Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2026.

And so this past month, we gathered (in person and virtually) for a writing retreat—a chance to reflect on our individual and common goals and to reaffirm our commitment to researching and writing together. Though a smaller team, we are still the Rituals in the Making Collective.

Here are a few scenes from the three-day retreat. We look forward to sharing the fruits of our redoubled efforts in dispatches throughout the summer. And a new website is “in the making” … please stay tuned!

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_{Three days of setting out goals, writing, reading, playing board games, and just being! Everything a successful retreat could be 🤭}

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PS from Sarah W: When I got home on Saturday evening, my block was full of people enjoying the Petworth Porchfest 2026. I spotted my neighbors and was chatting with them when a young woman leaned over to say, “I really like your shirt.” The t-shirt was a gift from my fellow co-editor of the Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Death, Sarah Richardson, also a staunch supporter of Rituals in the Making. It felt like a fitting end to the three days of working together with Martha, Avery, Paige, Maria Jose, and our virtual guest from Brazil, Andreia Vicente.

GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUNDING FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. (And Puppy Emmy just wants that cone off!)