This week the book “Political Moralism: The Triumph of Conviction Over the Faculty of Judgment," by the philosopher Hermann Lübbe, was published, translated from German into Portuguese by Professor Sérgio da Mata, from the History Department.
This is the second volume of the collection "New German Studies," organized by Prof. da Mata in partnership with Professor Arthur Alfaix Assis (UnB). In the first edition, the work "Constitutional Patriotism" by author Dolf Sternberger was published, translated by René Gertz.
picture-alliance/ dpa / Markus C. Hurek
The philosopher Hermann Lübbe, born in Aurich on December 31, 1926, at his home in Havixbeck near Münster on December 30, 2008
The initiative for the collection started from an invitation made to Sérgio da Mata by Rafael Benthien, professor at the History Department of UFPR, three years ago. He was invited to propose a collection for the university press related to German studies.
In partnership with Assis, da Mata explains that the proposal was to work with authors who would resonate with the current political and cultural moment, and who could provide a theoretical contribution that was "interesting and different", he said.
The premise of the collection is to publish authors with previously unpublished texts, which do not yet have translations in Brazil, in the format of essays and short books, without compromising quality. In the editions, da Mata explains that he sought to explore authors "from the democratic field", with critiques on how contemporary societies tend to experience constant growth of moralism in the political sphere, while examining the characteristics of the phenomenon.
Sérgio reports the difficulty of the production process: "They are dense texts, which are not easy to translate. German colleagues had told me about their own difficulty in understanding the author in German. So, trying to get his text into Portuguese with at least a minimum degree of comprehensibility was not exactly a simple thing."
The professor also mentioned that new titles are already planned, although it is a slow process, due to the difficulty of translating from German. All works are available on the website of the Federal University of Paraná Press.
