Founded in 1956, Penn State University Press publishes rigorously reviewed, high-quality works of scholarship and books of regional and contemporary interest, with a focus on the humanities and social sciences. The publishing arm of the Pennsylvania State University and a division of the Penn State University Libraries, the Press promotes the advance of scholarship by disseminating knowledge—new information, interpretations, methods of analysis—widely in books, journals, and digital publications.
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Experiencing the resonant acoustics of the church of Hagia Sophia allowed the Byzantine participants in its liturgical rituals to be filled with the Spirit of God, and even to become his image on earth.
Bissera Pentcheva's vibrant analysis examines how these sung rites combined with the church's architectural space ......
Explores the history and meanings of ilanot, diagrammatic representations of the Divine as a Porphyrian tree in Jewish mysticism and kabbalistic manuscripts.
In 1970s New York City, the abandoned piers of the Hudson River became a site for extraordinary works of art and a popular place for nude sunbathing and anonymous sex. Jonathan Weinberg's provocative bookpart art history, part memoirweaves interviews, documentary photographs, literary texts, artworks, and film stills to show how avant-garde ......
How does one deal with a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease at the age of forty-three? My Degeneration, by former Anchorage Daily News staff cartoonist Peter Dunlap-Shohl, answers the question with humor and passion, recounting the author's attempt to come to grips with the malicious whimsy of this chronic, progressive, and ......
This book presents the major teachings of Mahāyāna Buddhism in a precise, dramatic, and even humorous form. For two millennia this Sūtra, called the “jewel of the Mahāyāna Sūtras,” has enjoyed immense popularity among Mahāyāna Buddhists in India, central and southeast Asia, Japan, and ......
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to its knees. When we werent sheltering in place, we were advised to wear masks, wash our hands, and practice social distancing.
Nikita Khrushchev’s proclamation from the floor of the United Nations that "we will bury you" is one of the most chilling and memorable moments in the history of the Cold War, but from the Cuban Missile Crisis to his criticism of the Soviet ruling structure late in his career the motivation for Khrushchev’s actions ......
Hua-yen is regarded as the highest form of Buddhism by most modern Japanese and Chinese scholars. This book is a description and analysis of the Chinese form of Buddhism called Hua-yen (or Hwa-yea), Flower Ornament, based largely on one of the more systematic treatises of its third patriarch. Hua-yen Buddhism strongly resembles Whitehead's ......
