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.
Audience, Identity, and the Inquisition in the Early Modern Hispanic World
Explores sacred portraits in early modern Spain and Latin America and their use in mediating an individual's relationship to the divine, emphasizing the role of the spectator in the production of meaning.
Examines the involvement of African Americans in the New Deal art programs, shifting emphasis from individual artists toward broader issues informed by the uniqueness of Black experience.
Democracy is venerated in US political culture, in part because it is our democracy. As a result, we assume that the government and institutions of the United States represent the true and right form of democracy, needed by all. This volume challenges this commonplace belief by putting US politics in the context of the Americas more broadly. ......
At the turn of the twentieth century, depictions of the colonized world were prevalent throughout the German metropole. Tobacco advertisements catered to the erotic gaze of imperial enthusiasts with images of Ovaherero girls, and youth magazines allowed children to escape into "exotic domains" where their imaginations could wander freely. While ......
Forgery, Theft, and Sainthood in the Seventeenth Century
On the night of March 18, 1655, two Spanish friars broke into a church to steal the bones of the founder of their religious institution, the Order of the Most Holy Trinity. This book investigates this little-known incident of relic theft and the lengthy legal case that followed, together with the larger questions that surround the remains of ......
The Cambodian Civil War and genocide of the late 1960s and '70s left the country and its diaspora with long-lasting trauma that continues to reverberate through the community. In this book, Briana L. Wong explores the compelling stories of Cambodian evangelicals, their process of conversion, and how their testimonials to the Christian faith helped ......
An interdisciplinary investigation of nineteenth-century Quaker women's cultural challenges, historical landmarks, and gender transgressions. Explores the dynamic ways that Quaker women were active agents of social and cultural change within multiple contexts.
A collection of essays by art historians on works of art, artifacts, and monuments that are no longer extant, have disappeared, or perhaps never existed outside of language. Addresses destruction, loss, obscurity, and existential uncertainty within the history of art and the study of historical material and visual cultures.
