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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Explores significant interpretations of the human spirit in Western culture, with sources ranging from the Hebrew Bible and the apostle Paul to the theologians Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin and the natural philosopher and physician William Harvey.
A collection of writings from Dalmatian-Austrian philosopher, Roman Catholic priest, and radical cultural critic Ivan Illich. Focuses on Illich’s shorter writings from his early publications through the rise of his remarkable intellectual career, making available works that had fallen into undue obscurity.
Pessimistic Rhetoric on the Fringes of Popular Culture
In A Feeling of Wrongness, Joseph Packer and Ethan Stoneman confront the rhetorical challenge inherent in the concept of pessimism by analyzing how it is represented in an eclectic range of texts on the fringes of popular culture, from adult animated cartoons to speculative fiction. ......
Superhero comics reckon with issues of corporeal control. And while they commonly deal in characters of exceptional or superhuman ability, they have also shown an increasing attention and sensitivity to diverse forms of disability, both physical and cognitive. The essays in this collection reveal how the superhero genre, in fusing fantasy with ......
Democracy has long been fetishized. Consequently, how we speak about democracy and what we expect from democratic governance is at odds with practice. With unflinching resolve, this book probes the theory of democracy and how the left and right are fascinated by it.
In this innovative multidisciplinary study, Ralph Cintron provides ......
Heroic Subjectivity and Elect Community in Seventeenth-Century England
In this book, Emily Griffiths Jones examines the intersections of romance, religion, and politics in England between 1588 and 1688 to show how writers during this politically turbulent time used the genre of romance to construct diverse ideological communities for themselves.
Right Romance argues for a recontextualized ......
Self-Representation and the Bible in John Milton's Writings
Examines Milton’s identification with characters in Jesus’s parables. Connects Milton’s engagement with the parables to his self-representation throughout his poetry and prose.
Case Histories from Times of Change and Dissolving Order in the Ancient Near East
Representation of political power seems to have been necessary at all times in all complex urban societies. To secure order—to construct a certain social, ideological, religious, economic, and cultural stability—seems to be one of the main intentions of representation. When order breaks down or is threatened, political power comes ......
Politically and militarily powerful, early modern Scandinavia played an essential role in the development of Central European culture from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. In this volume, Kristoffer Neville shows how the cultural ambitions of Denmark and Sweden were inextricably bound to those of other Central European ......
