This book examines modern forms of customs related to the life cycle, namely birth and baptism, marriage, and death. Based on field research, as well as material available on the internet, and, of course, the relevant literature, customs are presented here that are often newly introduced but have spread within the Greek urban environment and subsequently through social media and advertisements to the countryside.

These customs, which have not been systematically studied until now in the Greek folklore literature, are characteristic samples of contemporary Greek modern folk culture, and the significance of their study lies in the fact that they delineate the transition from older traditional to modern forms of Greek folk culture.

In this way, they are treated as characteristic and borderline points of cultural transition and customs transformation, which determine our modern traditional daily life, serving as samples of contemporary, modern, and postmodern forms of folk culture that we experience today but rarely perceive as worthy of study. This is done systematically in the book, and indeed in comparison with similar contemporary customary forms of other nations, as a substantial contribution to understanding our folklore formations that characterize the daily life of our time.

Contents: Foreword, Introduction, Christening and baptism planning: the custom taxonomy, Wedding planners: modern and contemporary wedding rituals, Funeral homes: the urban management of death rituals, Conclusions and summary.

Professor Emmanouil Ger. Barvounis teaches Folklore at the Department of History and Ethnology of Democritus University of Thrace, where he served as President (2016 – 2020), and is the Director of the "Laboratory of Folklore and Social Anthropology." His books and studies have been translated and published in English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Serbian, Turkish, Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Arabic, Romanian, and Bulgarian.