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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This sweeping study of mysticism by Jess Hollenback considers the writings and experiences of a broad range of traditional religious mystics, including Teresa of Avila, Black Elk, and Gopi Krishna. It also makes use of a new category of sources that more traditional scholars have almost entirely ignored, namely, the autobiographies and writings ......
Liberalism in American Protestant Missions in China, 1907-1932
Like many of her fellow missionaries to China, Pearl Buck found that she was not immune to the influence of her adopted home. In this book Lian Xi tells the story of Buck and two other American missionaries to China in the early twentieth century who gradually came to question, and eventually reject, the evangelical basis of Protestant missions ......
A Monks Confession is the first completely new English translation of Guibert of Nogents remarkable memoirs in over seventy years. Written around the year 1115, they offer an unparalleled look at the life of a monk in the Middle Ages.
Baba Tuekles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition
This book is the first substantial study of Islamization in any part of Inner Asia from any perspective and the first to emphasize conversion narratives as important sources for understanding the dynamics of Islamization. Challenging the prevailing notions of the nature of Islam in Inner Asia, it explores how conversion to Islam was woven ......
Seduction, Patriarchal Society, and Literary Tradition
In Don Juan and the Point of Honor, James Mandrell undertakes a systematic examination of the many questions surrounding the legendary character. On the one hand, it might be argued that Don Juan threatens society, since he is supposedly an agent of social anarchy. On the other hand, given his intriguing sexual accomplishments, he ......
Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday
This volume contains fifty-two essays composed in honor of David Noel Freedman and organized around the topics: Hebrew Poetry and Prophecy, The Prose of the Hebrew Bible, History and Institutions of Israel, Northwest Semitic Epigraphy, and Other Perspectives. A bibliography of the honoree is included.
First published in 1979, this volume offers students and teachers a unique view of American history prior to the Civil War. Distinguished historian David Brion Davis has chosen a diverse array of primary sources that show the actual concerns, hopes, fears, and understandings of ordinary antebellum Americans. He places these sources within a ......
