Graduation by the couch. Ritual, pandemic, and life that (does not) goes on

Abstract

Ritual plays an important role in higher education and in the university collective life. On every campus, events are organized to welcome new students, and years later send them forth as graduates and alumni. Being a sociologist, for long interested in rituals and, at the same time, the proud aunt of a senior student just finishing her university studies, I did not indifferently experience the postponement of 2020 graduation ceremonies because of the COVID-19 pandemic.