Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 17:24:37 -0500
Subject: HAB: The Truncated Constellation
From: Martin Blanchard <tintamar-AT-club-internet.fr>


Hello dear list-members;


Has something gone wrong?

Habermas's "The Postnational Constellation" has just been published and
translated by Max Pensky.

Nowhere in the book have I found anything that says how many articles were
left out of the original "Die postnationalen Konstellationen" (incorrectly
referred to as "Die postnationale Konstellation", if I assume that the
German title is correct on Suhrkamp Verlag's website), which ones didn't
make it in the translation, and why. We are left in the void here. Moreover,
two articles seem to have been picked in other places, as an
"Acknowledgements" grants their copyright to other periodics. "On the Public
Use of History" seem to have underwent in the process a change of title,
originally being titled "How to Learn from History" (or is it "Learning from
Catastrophe"?). I assume then that those two weren't in the original German
collection. But then, who knows what? Especially that at the end of his
introduction, Pensky says his translation of "Conceptions of Modernity" is
based on a previous english version written by Habermas. Does that mean that
we are not accessing the German original? Somebody didn't do his homework
here, especially considering that it took 3 years to publish a 170 pages
translation!

I positively know that there could be something like 10 essays in the
original German publication. I have translated (painfully!) a Rolf
Wiggershaus appreciation of the book that says that ten essays are found in
the book. (If anyone wishes, I can make this article available (not the
translation, it's awful!).

Which means, if we substract the 2 outsider essays, that the english version
have translated 6 out of a possible 10. What about the four left? Are they
really unimportant? Could we know what they are?

I went to Suhrkamp Verlag on the Web, found nothing but the price in DM.


Things get worse in French. Only two articles have been translated from the
German original, plus one outsider (the NLR article on the "Pressures of
Globalization"). What's worse, the title of the book says "After the
Nation-State. A new political constellation", which I think distorts things
a wee too much. No article on the cultural aspect of the postnational
constellation having been translated, we are left, french readers, with the
impression that Habermas just wishes a postnational Europe for purely
economic-systemic reasons, along with a truncated cosmopolitan idealism.
What about the intermingling of cultures, the universalisation of already
existing nationalisms, the modernization of cultural life? These are all
subjects that the French could benefit from looking at, for one thing.

Anyways, could somebody help me? I would like to know which articles didn't
make it in the english translation. I will order a German version, but I
fear it will be long before I receive it. I am writing a piece on
Postnationalism, and I don't want to make any mistakes on the basis of not
knowing what happenend on the other lawn.


Thanks for all your help,

Martin B.



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