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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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 Tükles 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 ......
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 ......
This volume makes accessible for the first time in English Wackenroder’s Herzensergiessungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders (1787). One of the most important documents of early German Romanticism, the Confessions from the Heart of an Art-Loving Friar elevated Albrecht Dürer to a position of significance in art ......
Vladko Maček (1879–1964) was born in a small Croatian village and received his law degree in 1903 from the University of Zagreb. One of the early members of the Croatian Peasant Party, he was closely associated with its founders, Ante and Stephen Radić. After the dissolution of the Habsburg empire, Croatia became a part of the ......