Penn Press Log

Paul's Pick: a Free Article from the Journal of the History of Ideas

Paul's pick for February is "Infecting, Simulating, Judging: Tolstoy's Search for an Aesthetic Standard"  by Tatyana Gershkovich. The article appears in latest issue of the Journal of the History of Ideas.

  Gershkovich writes:

Much of the previous scholarship on What is Art? has examined the criteria Tolstoy uses to judge works of art. In this article, in contrast, I interrogate his argument for the very possibility of aesthetic judgment at all. On what grounds does he claim that one artwork ought to please everyone more than another? I argue that many of the paradoxes and contradictions of Tolstoy’s aesthetic worldview grow out of his attempt to establish a nonarbitrary, universal aesthetic standard.

Click here to download this free article and learn more about the Journal of the History of Ideas.

Check the Penn Press Log in March for Paul's next pick.

This Week's New Books: The Roman Inquisition, Freud on Madison Avenue, and Ceramics in Print

The Roman Inquisition: A Papal Bureaucracy and Its Laws in the Age of Galileo Thomas F. Mayer 392 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4473-1 | $79.95 | £52.00 A volume in the Haney Foundation Series As Thomas F. Mayer demonstrates in this first study of the Roman Inquisition as an institution, the Inquisition underwent constant modification as it expanded. Originally aimed to eradicate Protestant heresy, it went beyond medieval antecedents by becoming a highly articulated centralized organ directly dependent on the pope.

Now in Paperback Freud on Madison Avenue: Motivation Research and Subliminal Advertising in America Lawrence R. Samuel 232 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4251-5 | $29.95 | £19.50 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2226-5 | $22.50 | £15.00 Freud on Madison Avenue tells the story of how and why mid-twentieth-century advertisers adopted Freudian psychology to sell products. This study follows the careers of Paul Lazarsfeld, Herta Herzog, James Vicary, Alfred Politz, Pierre Martineau, Edward Bernays, and the father of motivational research, Ernest Dichter.

Ceramics and Print Paul Scott Third Edition 144 pages | 7 1/2 x 9 3/4 | 110 color illus. Paper | ISBN 978-0-8122-2242-5 | $29.95 | £19.50 A volume in the New Ceramics series Not for sale outside North America and the Philippines Ceramics and Print presents the latest developments in printing on clay and vitreous surfaces. Illustrated with new images of beautiful works by leading artists working in printed ceramics, this updated book is a must-read guide for artists and makers interested in this increasingly popular field.

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson. Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

This Week's New Books: The Gardens of Suzhou and Making New York Dominican

The Gardens of Suzhou Ron Henderson 224 pages | 6 x 9 | 111 illus. Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2214-2 | $29.95 | £19.50 A volume in the Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture series ""Henderson, a talented landscape architect and designer himself, offers a helpful representation and unique tour of this collection of some of China's most famous gardens."--Laurie Olin, University of Pennsylvania Walk with landscape architect and scholar Ron Henderson through seventeen of Suzhou's classical Chinese garden masterpieces. This insightful guide is fully illustrated with newly drawn plans, maps, and original photographs.

Making New York Dominican: Small Business, Politics, and Everyday Life Christian Krohn-Hansen 336 pages | 6 x 9 | 2 illus. Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4461-8 | $69.95 | £45.50 A volume in the City in the Twenty-First Century series This volume presents an ethnographic study of Dominicans in New York City through their participation in small businesses. Krohn-Hansen demonstrates how Dominican enterprises work, how people find economic openings, and how Dominicans who own small commercial ventures have formed political associations to promote and defend their interests.

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson. Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

Paul's Pick: a Free Article from Change Over Time

Every month, Paul Chase in the Penn Press Journals department invites our blog readers to download a complimentary article from one of our many scholarly journals.

Paul's pick for November is "Preservation by Adaption: Is it Sustainable?"  by Gregory Donofrio at the University of Minnesota. The article appears in the Fall 2012 issue of Change Over Time. Donofrio writes:

Preservation advocates have recently become fond of saying that ‘‘existing buildings
are the greenest ones of all,’’ an expression that begins to reveal the degree to which the natural environment has overshadowed other aspects of sustainability.

 

Click here to download this free article and learn more about Change Over Time, an international journal of conservation and the built environment.

Check the Penn Press Log in January for Paul's next pick.

This Week's New Books: Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians plus 5 paperback releases

Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians: Material Culture and Race in Colonial Louisiana Sophie White 384 pages | 6 x 9 | 33 color, 17 b/w Cloth Dec 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4437-3 | $45.00 | £29.50 A volume in the Early American Studies series Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians offers a distinctive and original reading of racialization in early America. Focusing on cultural cross-dressing from a wide range of sources, Sophie White shows that material culture—especially dress—was central to discourses about race, as colonization was built on encounters mediated by appearance.

Now in Paperback The Past in Pieces: Belonging in the New Cyprus Rebecca Bryant 224 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4260-7 | $45.00 | £29.50 Paper Dec 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2231-9 | $24.95 | £16.50 A volume in the Contemporary Ethnography series By examining oral history collected during two years of fieldwork, anthropologist Rebecca Bryant investigates why the 2003 opening of the ceasefire line dividing Cyprus has not led the country any closer to reunification, and how in many ways it has driven the two communities of the island farther apart.

Now in Paperback The Modern Moves West: California Artists and Democratic Culture in the Twentieth Century Richard Cándida Smith 264 pages | 6 x 9 | 35 illus. Cloth 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4188-4 | $39.95 | £26.00 Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2221-0 | $24.95 | £16.50 A volume in the Arts and Intellectual Life in Modern America series Exploring the transformation of California into a center for contemporary art through the twentieth century, this book dramatically illustrates the paths California artists took toward a more diverse and inclusive culture.

Now in Paperback Zamumo's Gifts: Indian-European Exchange in the Colonial Southeast Joseph M. Hall, Jr. 248 pages | 6 x 9 | 12 illus. Cloth 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4179-2 | $37.50 | £24.50 Paper Dec 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2223-4 | $22.50 | £15.00 A volume in the Early American Studies series Zamumo's Gifts traces the evolution of Indian-European exchange, from gift giving as a diplomatic tool to the trade of commodities that bound colonists and Natives in commercial relations.

Now in Paperback Everyday Nationalism: Women of the Hindu Right in India Kalyani Devaki Menon 232 pages | 6 x 9 | 4 illus. Cloth 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4196-9 | $49.95 | £32.50 Paper Jan 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2234-0 | $24.95 | £16.50 A volume in the Ethnography of Political Violence series This ethnography analyzes the popularity of Hindu nationalism in contemporary India through examining the everyday acts of women activists, finding that women's ability to recruit individuals from a variety of backgrounds and the movement's willingness to accommodate a multiplicity of positions are central to understanding its expansionary power.

Now in Paperback El Salvador in the Aftermath of Peace: Crime, Uncertainty, and the Transition to Democracy Ellen Moodie 304 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4228-7 | $55.00 | £36.00 Paper Jan 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2235-7 | $24.95 | £16.50 A volume in the Ethnography of Political Violence series After El Salvador's brutal civil war ended in 1992, crime rates shot up. People began to speak of the peace as "worse than the war." This study examines how narratives of post-conflict violence, told by ordinary people, offered ways of coping with uncertainty during a stunted transition to democracy.

Now in Paperback Traitors: Suspicion, Intimacy, and the Ethics of State-Building Edited by Sharika Thiranagama and Tobias Kelly 312 pages | 6 x 9 | 8 illus. Cloth 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4213-3 | $45.00 | £29.50 Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2237-1 | $24.95 | £16.50 Ebook 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0589-3 | $24.95 | £16.50 This volume examines political, ethnic, and personal trust and betrayals in modern times from Mozambique to the Taiwan Straits, from the former Eastern Bloc to the West Bank, revealing that treachery is a constant and essential part of the processes through which social and political order is reproduced.

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson. Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

This Week's New Books: Between North and South, The Sovereign Citizen, and Capricious Fancy

Between North and South: Delaware, Desegregation, and the Myth of American Sectionalism Brett Gadsden 352 pages | 6 x 9 | 13 illus. Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4443-4 | $45.00 | £29.50 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0797-2 | $45.00 | £29.50 A volume in the Politics and Culture in Modern America series Between North and South chronicles the three-decades-long struggle over segregated schooling in Delaware, a key border state and important site of civil rights activism and white reaction, that despite concerted white opposition to reforms produced one of the most progressive desegregation remedies in the nation.

The Sovereign Citizen: Denaturalization and the Origins of the American Republic Patrick Weil 224 pages | 6 x 9 Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-2212-8 | $34.95 | £23.00 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0621-0 | $34.95 | £23.00 A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series Present-day Americans may feel secure in their citizenship, but there was a time when citizens could be denationalized. Patrick Weil examines the twentieth-century legal procedures, causes, and enforcement of denaturalization to illuminate an important and neglected dimension of American citizenship, sovereignty, and federal authority.

Capricious Fancy: Draping and Curtaining the Historic Interior, 1800-1930 Gail Caskey Winkler. Foreword by Roger Moss 408 pages | 9 1/2 x 11 | 293 color illus. Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4322-2 | $85.00 | £55.50 Capricious Fancy chronicles the changes in American and European curtain and drapery styles from 1800 to 1930 resulting from the Industrial Revolution. This lavishly illustrated book contains 325 rare archival images and historical commentary from a leading historic preservation educator and practitioner.

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson. Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

A History of the Gardens of Versailles--Now in Paperback

A History of the Gardens of Versailles
Michel Baridon. Translated by Adrienne Mason
296 pages | 6 x 9 | 42 illus.
Cloth 2008 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4078-8 | $59.95 | £39.00
Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2207-4 | $26.50 | £17.50
A volume in the Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture series

"Known the world over, the gardens of Versailles are often visited hurriedly by crowds of tourists.... In contrast, this book examines the political and cultural intrigues during the era of the gardens' creation. To achieve his masterpiece, Louis XIV mobilized the seventeenth century's artistic and scientific elite. This work enables us to discover this universe."--Jardins, in a review of the French edition

Michel Baridon traces the history of the most famous gardens in the world from their inception through the three centuries of eventful history that they have witnessed. Read more . . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

The Camera and the Press - Now Available

The Camera and the Press: American Visual and Print Culture in the Age of the Daguerreotype
Marcy J. Dinius
320 pages | 6 x 9 | 44 illus.
Cloth Apr 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4404-5 | $49.95 | £32.50
A volume in the Material Texts series

"An important and original study of interconnections between the daguerreotype and literary writing during the antebellum period. Dinius does a superb job of recovering the history of American responses to the daguerreotype, showing in particular the complex role of writing itself in that reception."--Robert S. Levine, University of Maryland

Through a wide-ranging examination of antebellum images and literature, The Camera and the Press shows how Americans' first encounter with photography was more textual than visual. This thoroughly illustrated case study reexamines current theories on new media and reconnects print and visual culture in nineteenth-century America.

Read more on The Camera and the Press.

Read Marcy Dinius's blog post on Frederick Douglass and the daguerreotype.

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

Natural Light on Natural History: Rosamond Purcell's Notes on Photographing Artifacts for A Glorious Enterprise

A Glorious Enterprise: The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the Making of American Science, by Robert McCracken Peck and Patricia Tyson Stroud, features original photographs by Rosamond Purcell. Purcell found an unconventional studio space for her work, the Academy's rooftop. In this blog post, she shares some of her observations on natural history and natural light photography.

It was overcast and dark in the back rooms on the first day when we embarked on this exhilarating project at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. The first specimens we contemplated seemed drab, their charms unforthcoming. Bob Peck knew that I preferred to photograph using natural light, so we spent the morning hunting for optimistic window sills and faint glimmers. I searched through stiff-drawered cabinets of ancient chalk nodules, looking for beauties and leaving paper scraps in my wake. At about 2:00 p.m. we went outside, taking along several fossil ammonites and a few of the chalks found by the eighteenth century paleontologist, Etheldred Benett. Collections manager Ned Gilmore carried the specimens and kept us company, and, as a cheerful team, we explored the best open-air studio that this--or any other--institution had to offer.

Enchantment--Now Available

Enchantment: On Charisma and the Sublime in the Arts of the West
C. Stephen Jaeger
440 pages | 6 x 9 | 52 illus.
Cloth Mar 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4329-1 | $69.95 | £45.50
A volume in the Haney Foundation Series

This book examines charisma as the force in art, literature, and film that engages the reader's or viewer's consciousness and inspires admiration and imitation. Thirteen chapters analyze the workings of charisma and its effects, ranging from Homer to Woody Allen. Read more . . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.