Penn State University Press: 456 books
The Engineering Project
Its Nature, Ethics, and Promise
Language: English
Release Date: April 21, 2008
We all live our daily lives surrounded by the products of technology that make what we do simpler, faster, and more efficient. These are benefits we often just take for granted. But at the same time, as these products disburden us of unwanted tasks that consumed much time and effort in earlier eras,...
Thinking About Love
Essays in Contemporary Continental Philosophy
Language: English
Release Date: November 27, 2015
Does love command an ineffability that remains inaccessible to the philosopher?
Thinking About Love considers the nature and experience of love through the writing of well-known Continental philosophers such as Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Derrida, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
Evolving...
Conceiving a Nation
The Development of Political Discourse in the Hebrew Bible
Language: English
Release Date: April 23, 2009
Current conflicts in both national and international arenas have undermined the natural, organic concept of nationhood as conventionally espoused in the nineteenth century. Conceiving a Nation argues that the modern understanding of the nation as a contested concept—as the product of a fluid and...
by Leif E. Vaage
Language: English
Release Date: February 11, 2014
Language: English
Release Date: February 11, 2014
In Borderline Exegesis, Leif Vaage presents an alternative approach to biblical interpretation, or exegesis—an approach that bends the boundaries of the traditional North American methodology to analyze the meaning of biblical texts for a wider audience. To accomplish this, Vaage engages in a practice...
by Terry Nardin
Language: English
Release Date: December 5, 2001
Language: English
Release Date: December 5, 2001
This is the first comprehensive study of Michael Oakeshott as a philosopher rather than a political theorist, which is how most commentators have regarded him. Indeed, the careful reading of his published and unpublished writings that Terry Nardin provides here shows that Oakeshott's concerns have...
An Entrenched Legacy
How the New Deal Constitutional Revolution Continues to Shape the Role of the Supreme Court
Language: English
Release Date: December 13, 2007
An Entrenched Legacy takes a fresh look at the role of the Supreme Court in our modern constitutional system. Although criticisms of judicial power today often attribute its rise to the activism of justices seeking to advance particular political ideologies, Patrick Garry argues instead that the Supreme...
Church and Estate
Religion and Wealth in Industrial-Era Philadelphia
Language: English
Release Date: July 11, 2013
In Church and Estate, Thomas Rzeznik examines the lives and religious commitments of the Philadelphia elite during the period of industrial prosperity that extended from the late nineteenth century through the 1920s. The book demonstrates how their religious beliefs informed their actions and shaped...
by
Language: English
Release Date: September 18, 2013
Language: English
Release Date: September 18, 2013
In Feminist Interpretations of John Rawls, Ruth Abbey collects eight essays responding to the work of John Rawls from a feminist perspective. An impressive introduction by the editor provides a chronological overview of English-language feminist engagements with Rawls from his Theory of Justice onward....
by Patti Tamara Lenard
Language: English
Release Date: May 1, 2012
Language: English
Release Date: May 1, 2012
Banning minarets by referendum in Switzerland, publicly burning Korans in the United States, prohibiting kirpans in public spaces in Canada—these are all examples of the rising backlash against diversity that is spreading across multicultural societies. Trust has always been precarious, and never...
The Evolving Citizen
American Youth and the Changing Norms of Democratic Engagement
Language: English
Release Date: September 5, 2012
It has become a common complaint among academics and community leaders that citizens today are not what they used to be. Nowhere is this decline seen to be more troubling than when the focus is on young Americans. Compared to the youth of past generations, today’s young adults, so the story goes,...
Before the Revolution
Women's Rights and Right-Wing Politics in Nicaragua, 1821–1979
Language: English
Release Date: August 18, 2011
Those who survived the brutal dictatorship of the Somoza family have tended to portray the rise of the women’s movement and feminist activism as part of the overall story of the anti-Somoza resistance. But this depiction of heroic struggle obscures a much more complicated history. As Victoria González-Rivera...
Career Stories
Belle Époque Novels of Professional Development
Language: English
Release Date: February 5, 2008
In Career Stories, Juliette Rogers considers a body of largely unexamined novels from the Belle Époque that defy the usual categories allowed the female protagonist of the period. While most literary studies of the Belle Époque (1880–1914) focus on the conventional housewife or harlot distinction...
The Breathless Zoo
Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing
Language: English
Release Date: September 12, 2012
From sixteenth-century cabinets of wonders to contemporary animal art, The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing examines the cultural and poetic history of preserving animals in lively postures. But why would anyone want to preserve an animal, and what is this animal-thing now? Rachel...
Color in the Age of Impressionism
Commerce, Technology, and Art
Language: English
Release Date: April 21, 2017
This study analyzes the impact of color-making technologies on the visual culture of nineteenth-century France, from the early commercialization of synthetic dyes to the Lumière brothers’ perfection of the autochrome color photography process. Focusing on Impressionist art, Laura Anne Kalba examines...