Books published by Pennsylvania State University Press

Investigates the major paintings and sculpture produced for the church of Ognissanti (All Saints) in Florence between about 1300 and 1500 under the artistic patronage of the religious order of the Humiliati.

Presents the story of the Chanka people of Peru, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, told through a narrative of the crimes committed by a priest, Juan Bautista de Albadan, in the early 1600s.

Examines the visual traditions in a lost late twelfth-century manuscript, the Hortus deliciarum, compiled by Abbess Herrad for the sisters of Hohenbourg Abbey in Alsace. Argues that the topic of time, in the context of history, astronomy, and the calendar, was of central importance to the women's education.

Examines how photographic trickery in the 1850s and 1860s participated in the fashioning of the modern subject. Integrates images of the Victorian period into a new and expansive interpretive framework by locating specific mechanisms of photographic deception.

A collection of essays of that trace the increasingly sophisticated taste of American collectors of Italian Renaissance masterpieces from the antebellum era, through the Gilded Age, to the later twentieth century.

A Gift from the Heart documents in its entirety what is arguably one of the finest private collections of American art in the country. Much of the book comprises thematic essays written by invited scholars who consider the broader sociohistorical context of American art and culture as they delve into the particulars of the collection.

This work is an exploration of the role that economic belief plays in our modern society as a secular religion that serves many of the same functions as early Christian and other religions did in their time.

Brings together historians, philosophers, critics, curators, artists, and educators to ask how art is and should be taught. Explores the theories that underwrite art education at all levels, the pertinent history of art education, and the most promising current conceptualizations.

In this study, Christopher Rickey examines the internal logic of Heidegger's ideas to explain how they led him to become a powerful critic of liberalism and a Nazi supporter. Key to Rickey's interpretation is the radically antimonian conception of religiosity he finds in Heidegger's work.

Using data from local surveys, interviews, and rational statistics, this is a comparative study of two Central American cities similarly positioned in the world economy. It explores how development and state policies have affected the lives of people working in the informal economy.

In this work on what constitutes "primitive" art, Frances Connelly argues that "primitive" art was not a style at all, but a cultural construction by modern Europeans, a cluster of concepts principally forged during the Enlightenment concerning the nature of the origins of artistic expression.

An exploration and survey of the activities of right-wing extremist parties in the region stretching from Germany to Russia. It seeks to show that radical right activities can have pernicious effects even if right-wing extremists do not themselves succeed in obtaining seats in government.

This text examines how two epics from different cultures, the "Iliad" and the "Ramayana", were evoked by and acted upon by their respective societies. It also examines the role of literary "persuasion" in maintaining harmonious social interaction and in religious mystification.

A study in social democratic political theory that examines the writings of Jean Jaures (1859-1914), the parliamentary and philosophical leader of French socialism.

An English translation of the Abbe Prevost's 1740 novel The Greek Girl's Story. Includes foreword by Jean Sgard, notes, and appendices.

Traces an epistemological legacy from Romantic and Victorian ecological literature to modern scientific ecology. Investigates two essential and contrasting paradigms of nature that continue to be debated today.

A transcription and annotation of the diary of Emilie Davis, a free African American woman who lived in Philadelphia during the Civil War.

Examines the literary and visual works of the Spanish vanguardists, which engaged with and incorporated the mass-produced commodities of the Machine Age and anticipated the modern fields of material culture, technology studies, and network theory.

Explores listening as a fundamental human endowment connected with language and thought, and its potential for social, personal, and political action. Incorporates historical, literary, intercultural, scientific, musical, and philosophical perspectives.

In the context of legal privileges based on status and class in premodern Spain and Europe in general, investigates conflicts over and resistance to the status of hidalgo in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Castile.

Examines seventeenth-century sculpture in Rome. Focuses on questions of historical context and criticism, including the interaction of theory and practice, the creative roles of sculptors and patrons, the relationship of sculpture to antique models and to contemporary painting, and contextual meaning and reception.

Examines the creation in 1483 of the first illustrated travelogue, Peregrinatio in terram sanctam (Journey to the Holy Land), by Bernhard von Breydenbach and his artist, Erhard Reuwich of Utrecht. Focuses on the early use of the print medium to influence public opinion.

Describes the creation, function, and change in significance of liturgical furnishings and manuscripts in southern Italy from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries.

A series of studies examining literary modernism in Ireland. Explores how cultural work assumed new meaning amid the strategic imperatives of the mid-twentieth century, and demonstrates how the late modernist field became today's information age.

Investigates the response of the Roman Catholic Church to European Enlightenment critiques of revealed religion and clerical governance through the lens of its art, architecture, urbanism, and material culture.