Founded in 1956, Penn State University Press publishes rigorously reviewed, high-quality works of scholarship and books of regional and contemporary interest, with a focus on the humanities and social sciences. The publishing arm of the Pennsylvania State University and a division of the Penn State University Libraries, the Press promotes the advance of scholarship by disseminating knowledge—new information, interpretations, methods of analysis—widely in books, journals, and digital publications.
Scholarly publishing has faced monumental challenges over the past few decades. The Press takes its place among those institutions moving the enterprise forward. Its innovative projects continue to identify and embrace the technological advances and business models that ensure scholarly publishing will remain feasible, and widely accessible, well into the future.
Selected Poems by Juan de Castellanos, Bartolome de Flores, and Alonso Gregorio de Escobedo
The Epic of Florida brings to light a neglected tradition of colonial poetry from the sixteenth century. Written in response to dramatic encounters on the peninsula-Ponce de Leon's landfall in 1513, the founding of St. Augustine in 1565, and ongoing conflicts among European empires and Native peoples-these works capture how early modern writers ......
Selected Poems by Juan de Castellanos, Bartolome de Flores, and Alonso Gregorio de Escobedo
The Epic of Florida brings to light a neglected tradition of colonial poetry from the sixteenth century. Written in response to dramatic encounters on the peninsula-Ponce de Leon's landfall in 1513, the founding of St. Augustine in 1565, and ongoing conflicts among European empires and Native peoples-these works capture how early modern writers ......
Purity Culture, Bodies, and Beliefs confronts the enduring effects of religious trauma by centering the body as both a site of harm and a source of healing. This collection offers a necessary space for truth telling, grief, and renewal. Bringing together critical autoethnographies and theoretical reflection, this volume examines how purity ......
Purity Culture, Bodies, and Beliefs confronts the enduring effects of religious trauma by centering the body as both a site of harm and a source of healing. This collection offers a necessary space for truth telling, grief, and renewal. Bringing together critical autoethnographies and theoretical reflection, this volume examines how purity ......
Few artists were as determined to shape their own legacy as James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Fiercely protective of his reputation, he denounced would-be biographers, published The Gentle Art of Making Enemies as his own autobiography, and destroyed works he thought unworthy of his genius, declaring more than once that "to destroy is to survive." ......
The Conquest That Never Was uncovers one of the most ambitious but disastrous campaigns of the early colonial period. Pedro de Alvarado-best known as Cortes's lieutenant in Mexico and later as the conqueror of Guatemala-sought to extend his fame and fortune by seizing Quito in the northern Inca Empire. Instead, his massive fleet and army met ruin ......
The Conquest That Never Was uncovers one of the most ambitious but disastrous campaigns of the early colonial period. Pedro de Alvarado-best known as Cortes's lieutenant in Mexico and later as the conqueror of Guatemala-sought to extend his fame and fortune by seizing Quito in the northern Inca Empire. Instead, his massive fleet and army met ruin ......
Encounters with the Angel of Death in Islamicate Thought and Culture
The archangel Azrael enforces the divine command that all living things must return to God in death. The very word islam implies submission to God's will, and yet Muslim saints, prophets, and sorcerers used charisma, magic squares, and their bare hands to defy Azrael and extend their lives on earth. Their efforts reveal tension between the ......
All his life, Chad Anderson was told he was broken. He believed with all his heart that being a good Mormon would make him straight, because that is what was promised. Chad followed the prescribed road map: mission, marriage, and children. But it didn't make him happy, and it didn't make him straight. For Chad, coming out meant losing everything ......
