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.
Scholarly publishing has faced monumental challenges over the past few decades. The Press takes its place among those institutions moving the enterprise forward. Its innovative projects continue to identify and embrace the technological advances and business models that ensure scholarly publishing will remain feasible, and widely accessible, well into the future.
In the 1970s, best friends Polly and April collect hazy knowledge about the “facts of life”—sex, reproduction, and gender norms—through the gossip of older girls, magazines and books, and the everyday behavior of their families and teachers. What they learn reinforces their assumption that they will grow up to become ......
'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'; 'An Episode of Cathedral History'; 'Casting the Runes'; and 'The Diary of Mr. Poynter'
A collection of four stories of the supernatural by early twentieth-century medievalist and antiquarian M. R. James, exemplifying how James redefined the ghost story and how his connection to academia, antiquities, and medievalism inspired and informed his fiction.
Explores how priests and bishops who embraced the French Revolution creatively followed or destructively rejected traditional versions of priestly ministry.
In The Dark Side of Genius, Laurinda Dixon examines melancholia as a philosophical, medical, and social phenomenon in early modern art. Once considered to have a physical and psychic disorder, the melancholic combined positive aspects of genius and breeding with the negative qualities of depression and obsession. By focusing on four ......
The fifteen years in Germany between the end of World War I and the National Socialists' rise to power in 1933 stand out as one of the twentieth century's most tumultuous periods. These years of political and economic upheaval famously spawned significant and lasting changes in the arts. However, one noteworthy product of Weimar Germany's ......
Provides a definition and defense of individual privacy rights. Applies the proposed theory to issues including privacy versus free speech; drug testing; and national security and public accountability.
First published by the Warburg Institute in 1958, this book is considered a landmark in Renaissance studies. Whereas most scholars had tended to view magic as a marginal subject, Walker showed that magic was one of the most typical creations of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein, and the Postwar European Avant-Garde
Explores an international network of artists, artist groups, and critics linked by their aesthetic and theoretical responses to science, science fiction, and new media. Focuses on the Italian Spatial Artist Lucio Fontana and French Painter of Space Yves Klein.
