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.
How does soil, as an ecological element, shape culture? With the sixteenth-century shift in England from an agrarian economy to a trade economy, what changes do we see in representations of soil as reflected in the language and stories during that time? This collection brings focused scholarly attention to conceptions of soil in the early ......
Continuity and Change Among Viennese Youth, 1890-1938
This study of working-class culture, youth behavior, and the response of youths to conditions in a European setting acknowledges that poverty existed among much of the working class but questions the implicit arguments that these conditions necessarily brought about destructive responses. Until recently, various simplistic paradigms have ......
The Transformation of Public Architecture in Interwar Europe
Explores the work of Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund, focusing on his courthouse extension (1933–36) in the port city of Gothenburg. Places Asplund’s building into the wider context of public architecture in Europe from 1900 to 1950.
With its selection as the court of the Spanish Habsburgs, Madrid became the de facto capital of a global empire, a place from which momentous decisions were made whose implications were felt in all corners of a vast domain. By the seventeenth century, however, political theory produced in the Monarquia Hispanica dealt primarily with the concept of ......
Experiencing the resonant acoustics of the church of Hagia Sophia allowed the Byzantine participants in its liturgical rituals to be filled with the Spirit of God, and even to become his image on earth.
Bissera Pentcheva's vibrant analysis examines how these sung rites combined with the church's architectural space ......
An account, in graphic novel format, of a young Syrian refugee and how war forced him to leave everything behind, including his family, his friends, his home, and his business. This narrative follows his travels from Turkey to Greece.
"An account, in graphic novel format, of a young Syrian refugee and how war forced him to leave everything behind, including his family, his friends, his home, and his business. This narrative follows his travels from Syria, to Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey"--