Penn State University Press: 456 books
Reading the Written Image
Verbal Play, Interpretation, and the Roots of Iconophobia
Language: English
Release Date: November 12, 1991
Reading the Written Image is a study of the imagination as it is prompted by the verbal cues of literature. Since every literary image is also a mental image, a representation of an absent entity, Collins contends that imagination is a poiesis, a making-up, an act of play for both author and reader....
Without God
Michel Houellebecq and Materialist Horror
Language: English
Release Date: June 28, 2016
Michel Houellebecq is France’s most famous and controversial living novelist. Since his first novel in 1994, Houellebecq’s work has been called pornographic, racist, sexist, Islamophobic, and vulgar. His caricature appeared on the cover of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on January 7,...
Defending the Faith
John Jewel and the Elizabethan Church
Language: English
Release Date: November 30, 2018
This volume brings together a diverse group of Reformation scholars to examine the life, work, and enduring significance of John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury from 1560 to 1571.
A theologian and scholar who worked with early reformers in England such as Peter Martyr Vermigli, Martin Bucer, and...
Perception, Empathy, and Judgment
An Inquiry into the Preconditions of Moral Performance
Language: English
Release Date: December 27, 1993
In Perception, Empathy, and Judgment Arne Johan Vetlesen focuses on the indispensable role of emotion, especially the faculty of empathy, in morality. He contends that moral conduct is severely threatened once empathy is prevented from taking part in an interplay with cognitive faculties (such as...
Where Honeybees Thrive
Stories from the Field
Language: English
Release Date: November 21, 2017
Colony Collapse Disorder, ubiquitous pesticide use, industrial agriculture, habitat reduction—these are just a few of the issues causing unprecedented trauma in honeybee populations worldwide. In this artfully illustrated book, Heather Swan embarks on a narrative voyage to discover solutions to—and...
Transmitting the Spirit
Religious Conversion, Media, and Urban Violence in Brazil
Language: English
Release Date: August 23, 2017
Pentecostalism is one of the most rapidly expanding religious-cultural forms in the world. Its rise in popularity is often attributed to its successfully incorporating native cosmologies in new religious frameworks. This volume probes for more complex explanations to this phenomenon in the favelas...
Binding Earth and Heaven
Patriarchal Blessings in the Prophetic Development of Early Mormonism
Language: English
Release Date: October 25, 2012
In Binding Earth and Heaven, Gary Shepherd and Gordon Shepherd use early nineteenth-century Mormonism as a case study to examine questions about how new religious movements may, as rare exceptions, survive and even eventually become successful in spite of intense opposition. Initial scorn and contempt...
Chaucer, Gower, and the Vernacular Rising
Poetry and the Problem of the Populace After 1381
Language: English
Release Date: May 2, 2013
Chaucer, Gower, and the Vernacular Rising examines the transmission of Greco-Roman and European literature into English during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, while literacy was burgeoning among men and women from the nonruling classes. This dissemination offered a radically democratizing...
by Åke Daun
Language: English
Release Date: January 10, 1996
Language: English
Release Date: January 10, 1996
Is there a distinctly Swedish national character? Are Swedes truly shy, unemotional, conflict-avoiding, melancholy, and dour? Swedish Mentality, the English translation of the hugely successful book published in Sweden in 1989, considers the reality behind the myth. The author, Åke Daun, is a respected...
Reality’s Fugue
Reconciling Worldviews in Philosophy, Religion, and Science
Language: English
Release Date: November 5, 2017
Science, religion, philosophy: these three categories of thought have organized humankind’s search for meaning from time immemorial. Reality’s Fugue presents a compelling case that these ways of understanding, often seen as competing, are part of a larger puzzle that cannot be rendered by one...
by Isra Yazicioglu
Language: English
Release Date: November 25, 2013
Language: English
Release Date: November 25, 2013
Understanding the Qurʾanic Miracle Stories in the Modern Age explores the ways in which meaningful implications have been drawn from stories of miracles in the Qurʾan. Isra Yazicioglu describes the fascinating medieval Muslim debate over miracles and connects its insights with early and late modern...
Bribes, Bullets, and Intimidation
Drug Trafficking and the Law in Central America
Language: English
Release Date: June 5, 2012
Bribes, Bullets, and Intimidation is the first book to examine drug trafficking through Central America and the efforts of foreign and domestic law enforcement officials to counter it. Drawing on interviews, legal cases, and an array of Central American sources, Julie Bunck and Michael Fowler track...
Harnessing Globalization
The Promotion of Nontraditional Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America
Language: English
Release Date: August 18, 2009
How can countries in the underdeveloped world position themselves to take best advantage of the positive economic benefits of globalization? One avenue to success is the harnessing of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the “nontraditional” forms of the high-technology and service sectors, where...
What Kind of Democracy? What Kind of Market?
Latin America in the Age of Neoliberalism
Language: English
Release Date: December 31, 1998
While there is much literature analyzing the politics of implementing economic reforms, very little has been written on the social and political consequences of such reforms after they have been implemented. The basic premise of this book is that the convergence of many social, economic, and political...