Books published by Pennsylvania State University Press

A current grammar of Coptic (the last stage of the ancient Egyptian language) that includes material from all six of its major dialects. Includes a chrestomathy of readings in the six dialects as well as a dictionary.

A collection of essays by twelve scholars and museum curators examining the allure of Flemish painting to Americans over the past centuries, chronicling the roles played by determined individuals in forming private and public collections.

A critical analysis of the art and career of African American painter Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1998). Examines Jones's engagement with African and Afrodiasporic themes as well as the challenges she faced as a black woman artist.

Explores images of torment and martyrdom that appeared in the German-speaking world in the late medieval period, tying them to premodern conceptualizations of individuality and selfhood.

Explores forty-six religious, mythical, and imaginary creatures that are integral to the aboriginal worldview of Aymara, Aztecs, Incas, Maya, Nahua, Tabascos, and other cultures of Latin America.

Using an ecomaterialist conceptual framework, addresses interconnected stories from fiction, nonfiction, works of visual art, and physical sites in Italy and elsewhere.

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. Designed to accompany the major loan exhibition of the same name organized by the Palmer Museum of Art, From the Rooftops: John Sloan and the Art of a New Urban Space examines the allure of rooftop locales for Sloan, as well as for more than a dozen of his contemporaries.From his early career as an illustrator in Philadelphia to the final years of his life, Sloan nurtured a fascination with what he called the "roof life of the metropolis." Devoted to the importance of this setting in Sloan's oeuvre, From the Rooftops features paintings, prints, and photographs by Sloan, alongside examples from other notable artists of the time, such as George Ault, William Glackens, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edward Hopper, and Reginald Marsh--artists who were likewise enthralled by "the city above the city." In this book, art historian Adam Thomas explores the pivotal role that New York's City's rooftops played in Sloan's thinking about urban space and places Sloan's work within its broader artistic and cultural context. In his analysis, Thomas considers the liminal status of the rooftop and its complexities as both an extension of the domestic sphere and an escape from it during a period of profound social and architectural transformation in New York City. Featuring insightful analysis and more than eighty full-color illustrations, this catalog will appeal to art historians and art enthusiasts alike.

Explores the rise of formalism in the visual arts. Employs an expanded sense of form to rethink a range of areas, including the history of writing about art, constructions of high and low culture, and the idea of global modernism.

A collection of essays on the work of Djuna Barnes, including her early journalism, poetry, prose, visual art, and drama.

A collection of essays exploring how fiction, life-writing, and comics portray illness, medical treatment, and disability.

A collection of essays exploring how fiction, life-writing, and comics portray illness, medical treatment, and disability.

Explores the history of the postmortem cesarean operation, which was performed in order to extract the fetus and save its soul through baptism. Examines accounts of the operation from across the Spanish empire in the eighteenth century.

Examines how the Spanish monarchy managed an empire of unprecedented linguistic diversity, making only sporadic efforts to propagate Spanish during the sixteenth century. Challenges the assumption that the pervasiveness of the Spanish language resulted from deliberate linguistic colonization.

Explores the sociogenesis and development of the French royal mistress, examining the careers of nine of the most significant holders of that title between 1444 and the final years of the ancien regime.

A collection of essays examining the contentious, dynamic, and ethically complicated relationship between race and religion in Judaism. Includes perspectives from the fields of history, philosophy, sociology, ethics, religious studies, law, psychology, literary studies, and theology.

Addresses the question of how and why Horace Walpole and the men of his circle promoted the Gothic style in art, architecture, and literature in the latter half of the eighteenth century.