Tracing the foci of the five case studies that comprise this special issue—from two individual scholars’ intellectual histories in the light of shifting national intellectual-political environments in the midtwentieth century (Dani Schrire on Patai, Michaela Fenske on Peuckert); to disciplinary geographies within states (Antonia DavidovicWalther and Gisela Welz on post–World War II Germany, Ingrid Slavec Gradisnik on Slovenia over almost two centuries); on to the most current and urgent negotiations of international cultural policy between nation states and international institutions (Walter Leimgruber on Switzerland and UNESCO)—lines out a complex map of histories and current issues for policymakers and practitioners (ethnologists and folklorists, both academic and “applied” or public). The authors and their respondents also deftly and cogently remind American readers of the complexities of translating concepts, terms, methodologies, and theories within and among implicated disciplines, both European and American (and now, in the “South” as well). The bottom line, I believe, is that the translation and critique of knowledge formation—tracing concepts, practices, and histories (both disciplinary and socio-political)—must be an ongoing, global, periodic process that assesses the trajectories of ideas. Regular assessment is vital to