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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Culturally powerful ideas of normalcy and deviation, individual responsibility, and what is medically feasible shape the ways in which we live with illness and disability. The essays in this volume show how illness narratives expressed in a variety of formsbiographical essays, fictional texts, cartoons, graphic novels, and comicsreflect on ......
How does the imagination work? How can it lead to both reverie and scientific insight? In this book, Kieran M. Murphy sheds new light on these perennial questions by showing how they have been closely tied to the history of electromagnetism.
The discovery in 1820 of a mysterious relation between electricity and ......
In a major departure from previous scholarship, this volume argues that the illustrations in the famous and widely influential Utrecht Psalter manuscript were inspired by a late antique Hebrew version of Psalms, rather than a Latin, Christian version of the text.
Produced during the early ninth century in a workshop near Reims, ......
An Oral History of the Ladies' Garment Industry in Northeastern Pennsylvania, 1945-1995
By the mid-1930s, Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal industry was facing a steady decline. Mining areas such as the Wyoming Valley around the cities of Wilkes-Barre and Pittston were full of willing workers (mainly women) who proved irresistibly attractive to New York City’s “runaway shops”—ladies’ apparel ......
The story of how the Lisu of southwest China were evangelized one hundred years ago by the China Inland Mission is a familiar one in mission circles. The subsequent history of the Lisu church, however, is much less well known. Songs of the Lisu Hills brings this history up to date, recounting the unlikely story of ......
The Social and Artistic Power of Buttresses in French Gothic Architecture
Framing the Church takes a nontraditional approach to the study of the hallmark of French Gothic architecture: the buttress. In a series of case studies spanning approximately five hundred years and incorporating some of Gothic France's most significant monuments, Maile S. Hutterer examines the aesthetics, social ......
The celebrated Ashcan School artist John Sloan produced a distinctive body of work depicting life on the rooftops of early twentieth-century New York City.
Mobile, Contingent, and Ephemeral Networks, 1960-1980
Catherine Spencer is Lecturer in Art History at the University of St. Andrews. She has published articles and essays in Tate Papers, Oxford Art Journal, and the book British Art in the Nuclear Age.
An Oral History of the Ladies' Garment Industry in Northeastern Pennsylvania, 1945-1995
By the mid-1930s, Pennsylvania's anthracite coal industry was facing a steady decline. Mining areas such as the Wyoming Valley around the cities of Wilkes-Barre and Pittston were full of willing workers (including women) who proved irresistibly attractive to New York City's runaway shopsladies' apparel factories seeking lower labor and ......