Fixers in Motion. A Conversation CRAIG JEFFREY School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University CHRISTINE PHILLIOU Department of History, Columbia University DOUGLAS ROGERS Department of Anthropology, Yale University ANDREW SHRYOCK Editor, CSSH Since taking the editorial helm of CSSH in 2006, I have watched several intel- lectual trends shift and gather momentum. Postsocialist and postcolonial studies are merging into a more generalized interest in the politics of empire. Critical impulses once associated with the “post” approaches have found their way into studies of secularism, conversion, translation, and state effects. Increasingly, these topics are analyzed as transregional processes that operate across religious and political logics. In 2009, our first CSSH Conversation dealt with matters of tolerance and conversion in the Ottoman Empire, 1 and in 2010 we filled an entire issue with essays on secularism (52-3). In each case, the ground we explored was contested, but themes of governmentality and moral transformation were central, and the terms of debate were broadly shared. Equally intriguing, from an editorial perspective, are intellectual trends that surface in the absence of shared doctrinal positions, disciplinary investments, or aesthetic standards of genre. As a sifter and selector of CSSH manuscripts, I try to draw attention to these patterns by grouping kindred essays under the 1 Marc Baer, Ussama Makdisi, and Andrew Shryock, “Tolerance and Conversion in the Ottoman Empire: A Conversation,” CSSH 51, 4 (2009): 927–40. Comparative Studies in Society and History 2011;53(3):692–707. 0010-4175/11 $15.00 # Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 2011 doi:10.1017/S0010417511000302 692