In this article I consider the issues of temporality and periodization in the ancient Near East under three rubrics: how modern scholars have periodized ancient Near Eastern history, how societies of the ancient Near East periodized their own history, and, more broadly, how they conceptualized the temporal dimensions of their world and mapped themselves onto time. In each case I illustrate the issue with a selection of examples, which in no way represent comprehensive coverage. Under the last rubric, I focus on Sumer and Akkad.

It is now almost a half century since Clark Kerr (1911–2003) delivered the 1963 Edwin L. Godkin Lectures at Harvard University, presenting what was ultimately recognized as one of the most significant and influential ruminations on the nature of higher education in the United States. This sustained reflection on the modern evolution of the research university, ultimately published by Harvard University Press as The Uses of the University (1963), framed discussion and debate regarding the role of what Kerr called “the multiversity” for decades to come. In this endeavor, there was no one at the time better suited to the task. An economist who had served for several years on the faculty at the University of Washington, Seattle, Kerr joined the University of California, Berkeley, in 1945. Appointed Berkeley's first chancellor in 1952, he was the mastermind behind the enormous expansion (in both capacity and excellence) that marked the campus's immediate postwar history. By 1958, as the then legendary Robert Gordon Sproul concluded his 28-year duty as University of California (UC) president, Kerr seemed the obvious and best choice as successor.

Of the myriad terrorist organizations that emerged in the late 1960s and the 1970s, those supporting the destruction of socialist Yugoslavia and the establishment of an independent Croatia were among the most active. This article explores the geopolitical context behind the radicalization of certain segments of the émigré Croatian population in the three decades following World War II and the processes that led them to adopt terrorism as an acceptable form of political expression. Specifically, it examines how changes in the realities of the Cold War political landscape during the 1960s and 1970s directly shaped the strategies of Croatian separatist groups outside Yugoslavia. These developments led Croatian radicals to cultivate a culture of abandonment, betrayal, and persecution, in which the Croats were portrayed as a nation of victims without allies. This helped precipitate a radicalization of the separatist movement, as many within the Croatian diaspora were increasingly convinced that only “self-initiated action”—that is, political violence and terrorism—could hasten the establishment of an independent Croatian state. Difficulties in dealing with the realities of Cold War international politics also led to the emergence of significant cleavages and conflicts within the émigré separatist movement, which further helped frame the processes of strategic thinking among radical activists. Drawing evidence from state archives and the political writings of radical émigré Croatian separatist organizations, the article traces the trajectory of radical Croatian separatists from staunch supporters of the West to desperate and disillusioned advocates of realpolitik thinking.

This article highlights and fills gaps in research on migrant elites, traditionally defined as highly educated or professional migrants. The research on elite migrants has often suffered from methodological individualism: elite migrants are depicted as male professionals who shuttle from one work assignment or country to another, unrestricted by family relationships or national borders. My research shows the important role of marriage and family ties in life decisions of elite migrants, who in migration statistics and scholarly discussions appear merely as professionals, highly educated persons, or students. I also contribute to the recent literature that challenges the common assumption that migration is a unidirectional movement from one place to another initiated by a single motive, work or family. My research shows that in reality, for both women and men, multiple motives and multidirectional movements are often involved. Furthermore, my research highlights how elite migrants’ high social status does not necessarily guarantee privileged treatment by the host society or that elite migrants feel a part of the society in which they live. I use international marriages between Finns and Americans in Finland and the United States as a case study. I base my analysis on the 74 interviews that I conducted with American migrants and their Finnish spouses living in the capital region of Finland, in or near Helsinki, and with Finnish migrants married to US citizens and living in the state of Minnesota. In addition, I use responses to an online survey of American-born people who were living in Finland in 2008. I received 106 responses to the survey.

This article uses international migration flow (entry and exit) data as compiled by Walter Willcox and Imre Ferenczi (1970 [1929]) for the years between 1820 and 1924 to discuss the timing and cause of a transition in gender ratios—from male-dominated to gender-balanced—among international migrants. The article compares gender ratios for international migrants at the national, regional, and global levels and identifies when and how migration patterns to the United States resembled those to other parts of the world. Historical variations in gender ratios were considerable enough to render problematic the frequently used label “male-dominated” when applied to past migrations. The article discusses past cases of gender-balanced and female-predominant migrations and proposes an alternative typology for distinguishing among differently gendered international migrations. While some scholarly and popular sources depict the feminization of international migration as a recent phenomenon, historical data suggest that the convergence toward gender-balanced migrations began in the first half of the twentieth century. The article concludes by addressing contemporary debates over globalization and migration and cautions scholars against equating increased female mobility with egalitarian gender relations.

Archaeological chronologies tend to conflate temporalities from all cultural contexts in a region without consideration for the different depositional trajectories and life histories of the objects that serve as the basis of those chronologies. Social variables, such as gender, age, status, and individual mobility, act on artifacts in ways that must be identified and differentiated in order for seriations derived from one context to be applicable in another. This article presents evidence from early Iron Age contexts in Southwest Germany to illustrate this phenomenon and discusses its ramifications from the perspective of a case study focusing on the mortuary landscape of the Heuneburg hillfort on the Danube River. Gender in particular is strongly marked in this society and can be shown to affect the depositional tempo of certain artifact categories, which have different social lives and depositional fates depending on context. Artifact assemblages vary not only in terms of archaeological context and temporality but also are impacted by the social personae of the human agents responsible for, or associated with, their deposition.

This article offers a broad sketch of claims regarding the university’s public purpose in the 1960s while noting that a vision of the university as an autonomous forum for moral debate cut across the seemingly insurmountable divide between young radicals and their liberal elders. Read through the lens of educational philosophies, the era's clashes did not simply pit liberal advocates of political neutrality against radical exponents of political commitment. Rather, many radical activists—and some liberals— believed that the university should cut off many of its ties to the wider society to gain a more critical purchase on it. Indeed, critics of Clark Kerr's bureaucratic “multiversity” often hewed to a surprisingly traditional conception of higher education.

This article traces the pluralist politics at the heart of Clark Kerr's book The Uses of the University to the present-day politics of diversity. Pluralism was the dominant theory of American politics at midcentury, and Kerr was among its most admired spokespersons. First as a labor economist and strike negotiator, then as chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, and later as president of the University of California system, Kerr relied on “pluralistic decision-making” to harmonize relations among the multiversity's mix of vested interests. Shortly after The Uses of the University was published in 1963, however, student protesters at Berkeley and at other multiversities like it let Kerr know that they had grown tired of the pluralist politics that he championed. Ironically, in their effort to upend the pluralist status quo and to make politics more participatory, campus insurgents sowed the seeds for the growth of a new brand of pluralist politics known as diversity. By uncovering the relationship between pluralism and diversity, this article reveals the enduring—and surprising—political legacy of Kerr's multiversity model 50 years after he unveiled it.

Central to American identity have been public memories of events like the struggle for independence and the achievements of key figures from the past. The individual most often subject to hagiographic accounts is Abraham Lincoln, with emphasis both on his epic achievements in saving the Union and ending slavery and on his personal characteristics, such as honesty and the motivation to transcend his “backwoods” childhood and attain positions of local, state, and national leadership. However, a recent study based on extensive survey data found that Lincoln’s connection to emancipation provided the primary content of beliefs about him for most Americans today, with other beliefs mentioned much less often. Our present research supports that emphasis when presidential actions are the focus, but a randomized survey-based experiment shows that with a type of questioning that reflects the distinction between “essence” and “action”—inner character versus public achievements—beliefs about the former become at least as prominent as beliefs about the latter. Preliminary evidence to this effect is replicated decisively in a separate experiment, and the study is then extended to consider changes over time in indicators of essence versus action. Our research highlights the importance of how inquiries are framed, and they show that variations in framing, including those that are unintended, can enlarge our understanding of collective memory of Lincoln and of collective memory generally.

This article examines the key events leading to the creation of the California higher education system and Clark Kerr’s influential concept the “multiversity.” The wide, uncritical reception of this term requires explanation, which the essay explores both in terms of Kerr’s 1963 book, The Uses of the University, and in terms of its impact even on historical scholarship about American higher education. The essay concludes by finding the multiversity a highly selective (not an inclusive) standard and a latter-day extension of a pragmatic ideology with a long history and many unacknowledged problems.