Penn Press Log

This Week's New Books--Locked In, Locked Out, Take Up Your Pen, and More

Locked In, Locked Out: Gated Communities in a Puerto Rican City Zaire Zenit Dinzey-Flores 232 pages | 6 x 9 | 19 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4513-4 | $65.00 | £42.50 A volume in the City in the Twenty-First Century series In Locked In, Locked Out, Zaire Zenit Dinzey-Flores examines four communities in Ponce, Puerto Rico, showing how gates—in both physical and symbolic ways—distribute power, reroute movement, sustain social inequalities, and cement boundary lines of class and race. Read more . . .

Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American Politics Graham G. Dodds 304 pages | 6 x 9 | 1 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4511-0 | $69.95 | £45.50 A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series Graham G. Dodds explores the constitutional and historical development of unilateral presidential directives—the ability of presidents to bypass the legislative process and set public policy via their own executive orders—and how such a practice fits Americans' conception of democracy. Read more . . .

Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence: The Wars of Independence in Kenya and Algeria Fabian Klose. Translated by Dona Geyer 448 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4495-3 | $89.95 | £58.50 A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series Based on previously inaccessible material from international archives, Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence examines the relationship between emerging human rights concepts after 1945 and repressive British and French actions against anticolonial movements in Africa. Read more . . .

Bound to Read: Compilations, Collections, and the Making of Renaissance Literature Jeffrey Todd Knight 288 pages | 6 x 9 | 33 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4507-3 | $59.95 | £39.00 A volume in the Material Texts series Jeffrey Todd Knight excavates the culture of book collecting and compiling in early modern England, examining how the pervasive practice of mixing texts, authors, and genres into single bindings defined Renaissance ways of thinking and writing. Read more . . .

Multilevel Citizenship Edited by Willem Maas 288 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4515-8 | $65.00 | £42.50 A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series Multilevel Citizenship challenges the dominant conception of citizenship as legal and political equality within a sovereign state, demonstrates how citizenship is constructed by political and legal practices, and explores alternative forms of membership in substate, suprastate, and nonstate political communities. Read more . . .

Power Sharing in Deeply Divided Places Edited by Joanne McEvoy and Brendan O'Leary 432 pages | 6 x 9 | 25 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4501-1 | $85.00 | £55.50 A volume in the National and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century series This volume considers an array of power-sharing systems in divided cities and states, with critical evaluations of their merits and defects as well as explanations of their emergence, maintenance, and failings. Read more . . .

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: How the Golem Came to Prague, a Free Article from Jewish Quarterly Review

Paul's pick for May is "How the Golem Came to Prague"  by Edan Dekel and David Gantt Gurley. The article appears in Spring 2013 issue of Jewish Quarterly Review.

This article examines the emergence of the Golem legend associated with the Maharal of Prague in the first half of the nineteenth century, with specific attention to the innovations found in two little-known versions by important Jewish literary figures of the era: the Bohemian-born Viennese poet and editor Ludwig Frankl and the Danish writer Meir Aaron Goldschmidt.  These versions, it is argued, reveal several crucial mechanisms that help explain the shift from a Golem tale distributed among various individual places and rabbis, to one with little or no specificity at all, and finally to the Prague version that dominates the subsequent literary and artistic manifestations of the legend.

Click here to download this free article and learn more about Jewish Quarterly Review.

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

This Week's New Books: Ellis Island Nation, Human Rights and the Negotiation of American Power, Dreams, Dreamers, and Visions, How Rivalries End, and More

Ellis Island Nation: Immigration Policy and American Identity in the Twentieth Century Robert L. Fleegler 280 pages | 6 x 9 | 5 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4509-7 | $49.95 | £32.50 A volume in the Haney Foundation Series Examining the shift between American immigrant policy between 1924 and 1964, Ellis Island Nation traces the emergence of "contributionism," the belief that the newcomers from eastern and southern Europe contributed important cultural and economic benefits to American society. Read more . . .

Human Rights and the Negotiation of American Power Glenn Mitoma 240 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4506-6 | $55.00 | £36.00 A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series Through careful archival research, Glenn Mitoma reveals how the U.S. government, key civil society groups, Cold War politics, and specific individuals led to America's emergence in the twentieth century as an ambivalent yet central player in establishing an international rights ethic. Read more . . .

Dreams, Dreamers, and Visions: The Early Modern Atlantic World Edited by Ann Marie Plane and Leslie Tuttle. Foreword by Anthony F. C. Wallace 336 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4504-2 | $65.00 | £42.50 In this volume, scholars from three continents trace the role of dreams in the cultural transitions of the early modern Atlantic world, illustrating how both indigenous and European methods of understanding dream phenomena became central to contests over religious and political power. Read more . . .

How Rivalries End Karen Rasler, William R. Thompson, and Sumit Ganguly 272 pages | 6 x 9 | 4 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4498-4 | $69.95 | £45.50 Examining political hot spots stretching from Egypt and Israel to North and South Korea, How Rivalries End builds an original theory from patterns in successful conflict resolutions and reveals the key factors in reducing tensions and building long-term peace between adversaries. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback "The Farce of the Fart" and Other Ribaldries: Twelve Medieval French Plays in Modern English Edited and translated by Jody Enders 496 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4323-9 | $49.95 | £32.50 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2251-7 | $29.95 | £19.50 A volume in the Middle Ages Series Theater historian Jody Enders brings a dozen of the funniest French farces to contemporary English speaking audiences for the first time. This performance-friendly collection includes background information about the plays for medievalists, theater practitioners, and classic comedy lovers alike. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Almost a Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the 1980 Phillies William C. Kashatus 392 pages | 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 | 30 illus. Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2245-6 | $24.95 | £16.50 Almost A Dynasty details the rise and fall of the World Champion 1980 Phillies. Based on personal interviews, newspaper accounts, and the keen insight of a veteran baseball writer, the book convincingly explains how a losing team was finally able to win its first world championship. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Civil Rights Advocacy on Behalf of the Poor Catherine M. Paden 240 pages | 6 x 9 | 13 illus. Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4297-3 | $55.00 | £36.00 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2267-8 | $26.50 | £17.50 A volume in the American Governance: Politics, Policy, and Public Law series In Civil Rights Advocacy on Behalf of the Poor, Catherine M. Paden examines five civil rights organizations and explores why they chose to represent the poor—specifically, low-income African Americans—during six legislative periods considering welfare reform. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback First Lady of Letters: Judith Sargent Murray and the Struggle for Female Independence Sheila L. Skemp 512 pages | 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 | 10 illus. Cloth 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4140-2 | $42.50 | £28.00 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2248-7 | $27.50 | £18.00 A volume in the Early American Studies series Thanks to the recent discovery of Judith Sargent Murray's papers—including some 2,500 personal letters—Sheila L. Skemp has documented the compelling story of a talented and most unusual eighteenth-century woman. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Citizenship, Borders, and Human Needs Edited by Rogers M. Smith 504 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4283-6 | $65.00 | £42.50 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2269-2 | $34.95 | £23.00 A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series Edited and with an introduction by political scientist Rogers M. Smith, Citizenship, Borders, and Human Needs brings together essays by an international array of leading scholars from a wide range of disciplines to explore the economic, cultural, political, and normative aspects of comparative immigration policies. Read more . . .

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

Sister Carrie, the Pennsylvania Edition Publishing Anniversary

"On this day in 1981 the University of Pennsylvania Press issued their edition of Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, in which some 40,000 words are restored to the text and various changes to the original manuscript are reversed. Far from settling the issue, the Pennsylvania edition provided yet another chapter to one of the most famous and controversial stories in American book publishing."--Today in Literature, April 17, 2013

Why Sing a Poem? Paul Laurence Dunbar’s "A Corn Song" in J19

A new article on the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s musical setting of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “A Corn Song” appears in the inaugural issue of J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists. Here, the author of the article, Tsitsi Jaji, performs the the song and discusses how she came to sing it as part of her scholarship.

A Corn Song by PennPress

Why Sing a Poem?

In my article for the cluster on American poetics of the nineteenth century I begin with a series of questions: “What can we learn about reading poetry on and off the page from musical composers’ settings of poetry in art songs? How do art songs work as a form of poetics? How do we allow for a composer’s style and resist facile notions of meaning in music while also recognizing the thoughtful textual analyses in art songs?” How I came to care about these questions, and why the Afro-British composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s 1897 musical setting of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “A Corn Song” proved such a fun way to engage these questions is the story I invite you to consider here.

This Week's New Books

Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in Translation from Innocent III to the Fall of Acre, 1187-1291 Edited by Jessalynn Bird, Edward Peters, and James M. Powell 568 pages | 6 x 9 | 5 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4478-6 | $75.00 | £49.00 A volume in the Middle Ages Series Intended for the undergraduate yet also invaluable for teachers and scholars, this book illustrates how the crusade became crucial for defining and promoting the very concept and boundaries of Latin Christendom. It provides translations of and commentaries on key original sources and an up-to-date bibliography. Read more...

Tropical Whites: The Rise of the Tourist South in the Americas Catherine Cocks 284 pages | 6 x 9 | 9 color, 12 b/w illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4499-1 | $59.95 | £39.00 A volume in the Nature and Culture in America series Tropical Whites explains how the tropical beach resort came to symbolize the iconic vacation landscape. Catherine Cocks argues that the tourism industry romanticized and commodified tropical nature in the global South, ultimately legitimizing cultural pluralism and concepts of modern identity. Read more...

Inventing the Egghead: The Battle over Brainpower in American Culture Aaron Lecklider 296 pages | 6 x 9 | 21 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4486-1 | $45.00 | £29.50 Throughout the twentieth century, popular songs, magazine articles, plays, posters, and novels alternated between representing intelligence as empowering and as threatening. In Inventing the Egghead, Aaron Lecklider cracks open this paradox by examining representations of intelligence to reveal brainpower's stalwart appeal and influence. Read more...

An Age of Infidels: The Politics of Religious Controversy in the Early United States Eric R. Schlereth 312 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4493-9 | $55.00 | £36.00 A volume in the Early American Studies series Eric R. Schlereth places religious conflicts between deists and their opponents at the center of early American public life. This history recasts the origins of cultural politics in the United States by exploring how everyday Americans navigated questions of religious truth and difference in an age of emerging religious liberty. Read more...

Paul's Pick: "Why We Argue About the Way We Read," a free article from The Eighteenth Century

Paul's pick for March is "Why We Argue About the Way We Read"  by Lisa A. Freeman at the University of Illinois Chicago. The article appears in Spring 2013 issue of The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation.

The article is an introduction to a new feature called “Critical Conversations.” Our intention is to provide our community of readers with short pieces by eighteenth-century scholars that address the timely and topical intellectual debates circulating within the academic profession at large. We are honored that the inaugural Critical Conversation, “Why We Argue About the Way We Read,” is guest edited by Lisa A. Freeman, with contributions from Emily Hodgson Anderson, Suvir Kaul, Stuart Sherman, and Kristina Straub.

Click here to download this free article and learn more about The Eighteenth Century.

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

This Week's New Book: Lost Letters of Medieval Life English Society, 1200-1250

Lost Letters of Medieval Life English Society, 1200-1250 Edited by Martha Carlin and David Crouch 432 pages | 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 | 19 illus. Cloth Mar 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4459-5 | $79.95 | £52.00 A volume in the Middle Ages Series Drawn from two medieval collections of form letters for all manner of business and personal affairs, Lost Letters of Medieval Life depicts early thirteenth-century England through the everyday correspondence of people of all classes, from peasants and shopkeepers to bishops and earls. Read more . . .

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

Medieval Monday: A Financial Aid Request from the Middle Ages

Lost Letters of Medieval Life: English Society, 1200-1250 just arrived in the Penn Press warehouse. Translated from Latin by the editors Martha Carlin and David Crouch, this collection of correspondence from thirteenth-century England reveals details about the everyday lives of people from all social stations. Carlin and Crouch selected writings from formularies, collections of model letters, maintained in the British Library and the Bodleian Library. The selections cover everything from real estate transactions to religious life.

Press staff have been looking forward to sharing a few examples from the collection. Since we're on a university campus, we'll start with a letter in the Student Life section. One of the Press work-study assistants was pretty amused by this letter from a University of Oxford student. Student B (who probably didn't even have a job) writes to his mother for money. His request contains the one-two punch of pity and shame, plus the threat of being likened to a "stepmother."

To his dearest mother A., B. her son sends greetings. A mother’s love for her child is bound to be strong and gracious, but if a widow changes her maternal habits she will be crueler than a stepmother. For until now, both in deed and in word, you showed me maternal piety. If you relieved my want through some lavishing of favor, would that your former feelings might endure in you, so that I might find you as I used to find you—and as I shall find you, God willing, because I have never offended nor shall I offend [you] in all my life. You will know, moreover, that I am well at Oxford, and as happy as possible, but I have been bare of clothing for a long time, and I am hungry because I have no money with which I may choose to allay thirst or hunger. And so I pour out pious prayers to Your Maternity, seeking anxiously that, with the right hand of largesse, you raise up your son, who has been lying until now in a lake of misery, in a manner more shameful than honorable. And thus, may you look to his immediate welfare, so that he might visit you in a better state and stay for a longer time. Farewell.

Did this letter actually move medieval mothers to pull their sons from the "lake of misery," or did it produce more smirks than sympathy?

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.