Rural Rites in Ovid’s Fasti

The rites of spring

Every spring I get depressed. Last month I had the stunning realization that graduate student recruitment is a major cause of my spring depression. Each year, as the days lengthen, graduate programs engage in their ritualistic seduction of prospective students. In the past 15 years, US institutions, including the most elite and respected, have evolved mating displays worthy of birds and fish. T...

From Rites to Rights:

It is the charge of economic history not only to explain the economic past, but to use it to enrich and develop economic theory (North, 1994). In paleoeconomics, theory plays the additional role of adding veracity of accounts based on sparse evidence through the demonstration of internal consistency. We synthesize pre-historical and historical evidence available from the settlement and moderniz...

Important Fertility symbols and Rites (Northern India)

Man has always been fascinated by miscellaneous elements in nature. Amongst them all, the most astonishing is the principle of world i.e. ‘ seed’ and ‘womb’, and the vital role played for their existence is by ‘prana’ or breath. This theory led to the evolution of the cult of fertility. In almost all religious practices fertility is represented with symbols, rituals and prayers. In plain langua...

The Last Rites of Public Campaign Financing?

Man Thou Art Dust: Rites of Passage in Austere Times

In response to recent calls for further cross-disciplinary research on austerity and a deeper sociological understanding of the impact and aftermath of the economic crisis on individuals and societies, this article builds on extant austerity literature through an exploration of its effects on European men. Informed by theories of liminality and rites of passage, this qualitative investigation e...