This special issue focuses on a predicament by no means unique but particularly pertinent to our century: the paradox created by intricate relations between professionalism, ideology, and power. All of the material we find assembled here—of the traumas of the thirties and the various scenarios that have been acted out since the war—focuses on self-conscious maneuverings by professionals in solving the problem of how to stay alive, personally or professionally or both, and yet maintain a sense