Books published by Pennsylvania State University Press

A collection of essays examining colonial Philadelphia and its surroundings as a zone of cultural and linguistic interchange. Documents everyday multilingualism and intercultural negotiations with special attention to themes of religion, education, race and the abolitionist movement, and material culture and architecture.

Integrates the perspectives of Giorgio Agamben, Roberto Esposito, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Lacanian psychoanalysis to distinguish communication theory from the philosophy of communication.

A study of ancient Rome as a prominent topic in the works of Middle English poets. Discusses how each these poets conceives of ancient Rome and Romans, both pagan and Christian, and why it matters to their work. Includes the works of Gower, Chaucer, Langland, and Lydgate.

Examines the ways queer theory and Mennonite literature have intersected over the past decade and how these two traditions hold fundamental commitments to social justice in common.

A collection of essays focusing on the relationship between concepts of the holy and the unholy in western European medieval culture. Demonstrates how religion, magic, and science were all modes of engagement with a natural world that was understood to be divinely created and infused with mysterious power.

Examines the subculture of enigmatology: mechanical puzzles, their makers, and those who aspire to solving them. Argues that the provocations and broad popularity of puzzles underscore the intellectual worth of questioning and failure-and of the pursuits of the humanities.

Examines the role of the Roman emperors' slaves in the rise of Christianity, and how imperial slaves were essential to early Christians' self-conception as a distinct people in the Mediterranean.

Examines the lived experiences of women criminals in Pennsylvania from 1820 to 1860, mainly as they navigated the nineteenth-century legal and prison systems.

A comprehensive collection of the writings of Elizabeth Webb, a Quaker missionary who traveled and taught in England and America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

A comprehensive collection of the writings of Elizabeth Webb, a Quaker missionary who traveled and taught in England and America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

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

Explores representations of Joan of Arc in English culture from 1429 until the early nineteenth century, examining the factors that shaped retellings of her military successes and execution.

Explores the uses of the abandoned Hudson River docks in New York City by artists and a newly emerging gay subculture between 1971 and 1983.

Considers the development of the pastoral in sixteenth-century Venice as an urban phenomenon specific to the lagoon. Studies Venetian urban gardens as actual places, imaginary spaces, and fantasies of urban planning challenged by ecological concerns.

A collection of essays that examine early American cultural, political, and social history through a material lens, exploring the meanings of objects ranging from artworks and domestic furnishings to Penn's Treaty Tree.

Examines the aesthetic principles and spiritual operations at work in Hagia Sophia. Drawing on art and architectural history, liturgy, musicology, and acoustics, explores the Byzantine paradigm of animation.

The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704-681 BC), Part 1 (Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period 3/1) provides reliable, up-to-date editions of thirty-eight historical inscriptions of Sennacherib. The texts edited in RINAP 3/1, which comprise approximately a sixth of the Sennacherib known corpus of inscriptions, were inscribed on clay cylinders, clay prisms, stone tablets, and stone steles from Nineveh; describe his many victories on the battlefield; and record numerous construction projects at Nineveh, including the city''s walls and the "Palace Without a Rival." Each text edition (with its English translation) is supplied with a brief introduction containing general information, a catalogue containing basic information about all exemplars, a commentary containing further technical information and notes, and a comprehensive bibliography.RINAP 3/1 also includes: (1) a general introduction to the reign of Sennacherib, his military campaigns, his building activities at Nineveh, the corpus of inscriptions, previous studies, and dating and chronology; (2) translations of the relevant passages of several Mesopotamian chronicles and kinglists; (3) several photographs of objects inscribed with texts of Sennacherib; (4) indices of museum and excavation numbers and selected publications; and (5) indices of proper names (Personal Names; Geographic, Ethnic, and Tribal Names; Divine, Planet, and Star Names; Gate, Palace, Temple, and Wall Names; and Object Names).The RINAP Project is under the direction of G. Frame (University of Pennsylvania) and is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

A collection of essays exploring musical sounds and worship practices within Pentecostal Charismatic Christianity. Combines ethnographic case studies with theoretical reflection informed by social science, musicological, religious studies, and theological approaches, resulting in a multidisciplinary analysis of a global phenomenon.

Examines the aristocratic experience in early modern France through a close examination of the history of the Rohan, a noble family in the Parisian court who were involved in notable political and religious events from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries.

Gathers historians, philosophers, critics, curators, and artists to explore the divisions in teaching, practice, and theorization of art created by the choice between continuations of Modernism, with its aesthetic values, and the many kinds of postmodernism, which privilege issues outside aesthetics, including politics, gender, and identity.

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

The first of two volumes chronicling the history and role of music in the African-American experience. Explains the historical significance of song and illustrates how music influenced the Civil Rights Movement.

Analyzes the emergence and development of art history as a discipline in Austria-Hungary. Focuses on the ways in which ideas about art and its history became intertwined with political and social identity, and on the cultural politics that shaped the final years of the Habsburg Empire.

The Hebrew Bible has long been the subject of theological inquiries and debates in Judaism and Christianity. But is there something like theology already in the Hebrew Bible itself? Is it possible to describe the literary growth of the Hebrew Bible by means of an ongoing theological debate? Answers to these questions depend on how one conceives of the category “theology.” In this book, Konrad Schmid reconstructs the development of this category, then describes and discusses biblical texts in the Hebrew Bible that are relevant to the question Is There Theology in the Hebrew Bible?The book consists of two main sections. In the first, Schmid traces the notion of “theology” from its earliest use, in Greek philosophy, through the medieval period and to today. He pays close attention to “biblical theology,” particularly the different understandings of this idea as something emanating from the Hebrew Bible itself versus something that readers impose onto the biblical text. He also tracks the influence of the discipline of comparative religion on biblical theology, especially with regard to the growing division between biblical and systematic theology. In the second part, Schmid focuses specifically on “implicit” biblical theology, that is, theological reflection apparent within the Hebrew Bible itself. He provides several examples, such as the theologization of the law that resulted from inner-biblical exegesis and Jeremiah’s universal theology of history.Is There Theology in the Hebrew Bible? will serve as an important reference to all those interested in the question posed by the title. Schmid provides a nuanced answer to this question that both takes into account the convoluted history of biblical theology and lays out new ways of approaching the subject.

This text is a profound reflection on the "Argentine dilemma" and the challenges that the country faces as it tries to rebuild democracy. Romero reconstructs and analyzes Argentina's tortuous, often tragic modern history, including the "alluvial society" and the Juan and Eva Peron years.

Explores the implications of Quranic miracle stories for the modern era. Examines the medieval Muslim debate over miracles, and connects its insights with early and late modern turning points in modern Western thought as well as contemporary Quranic interpretation.