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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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 ......
In this provocative book, Marla Segol explores the development of the kabbalistic cosmology underlying Western sex magic. Drawing extensively on Jewish myth and ritual, Segol tells the powerful story of the relationship between the divine and the human body in late antique Jewish esotericism, in medieval kabbalah, and in New Age ritual practice. ......
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.
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 ......
Genesis 1–11 is a text that may well have received more attention than any other in the history of literature. Nevertheless, what do we know about the personal names that occur in these chapters and whose influence has permeated all of Western literature? Hess provides a thorough investigation of the ancient Near Eastern background of ......
This collection of essays considers the place of magic in the modern world, first by exploring the ways in which modernity has been defined in explicit opposition to magic and superstition, and then by illuminating how modern proponents of magic have worked to legitimize their practices through an overt embrace of evolving forms such as ......
Explores the role of writer Gwendolyn Bennett as an important contributor to the Harlem Renaissance. Includes Bennett’s published and unpublished poetry, fiction, essays, diaries, letters, and artwork.
In recent years, many prominent and successful artists have claimed that their primary concern is not the artwork they produce but the artistic process itself.
For much of the last half of the twentieth century, W. G. Lambert devoted much of his research energy and effort to the study of Babylonian texts dealing with Mesopotamian ideas regarding creation, including especially Enuma Elish. This volume, which appears almost exactly 2 years after Lambert’s death, distills a lifetime of ......
