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Over the past century in the United States," age" has become increasingly dominant as a social classifying device and a determinant of subjectivities (Kohli, 1996). In the 1990s, age provides ever more expectable and subtle ways of fragmenting the life course, the work force, and the citizenry. Social gerontology and, now, age studies have tried to counter this secular force by emphasizing the discursively constructed, historically contingent aspects of age and aging. Yet despite our efforts, common sense considers age ahistorical, another" body-based" fact of life like" gender" and" race." Indeed, the habit of naturalizing age becomes more deeply entrenched. Begin with the imperious trend toward sundering the continuous life course into imaginary parts, reified by naming. The West long managed to make do with fewer categories and vaguer boundaries between" youth" and" old age."" Childhood" only gradually …