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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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 ......
This book presents the major teachings of Mahāyāna Buddhism in a precise, dramatic, and even humorous form. For two millennia this Sūtra, called the “jewel of the Mahāyāna Sūtras,” has enjoyed immense popularity among Mahāyāna Buddhists in India, central and southeast Asia, Japan, and ......
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 ......
In Russia and the Americas, from 1763 to the Present
Catherine the Great recruited thousands of colonists “to populate her lower Volga River frontier with dependable permanent settlers who not only would bring stability to this lawless, underdeveloped, and uncharted region, but also would reclaim the vast wasteland there”—an area larger than the state of Maryland. This ......
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 ......
