Penn Press Log

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

Win a Free Copy of Ellis Island Nation

Ellis Island Nation: Immigration Policy and American Identity in the Twentieth Century, a new book by University of Mississippi historian Robert L. Fleegler, traces the emergence of "contributionism," the belief that the newcomers from eastern and southern Europe contributed important cultural and economic benefits to American society.

Early twentieth-century immigrants from southern and eastern Europe often found themselves criticized for language and customs at odds with their new culture, but initially found greater acceptance through an emphasis on their similarities to "native stock" Americans. Drawing on sources as diverse as World War II films, records of Senate subcommittee hearings, and anti-Communist propaganda, Ellis Island Nation describes how contributionism eventually shifted the focus of the immigration debate from assimilation to a Cold War celebration of ethnic diversity and its benefits--helping to ease the passage of 1960s immigration laws that expanded the pool of legal immigrants and setting the stage for the identity politics of the 1970s and 1980s. Ellis Island Nation provides a historical perspective on recent discussions of multiculturalism and the exclusion of groups that have arrived since the liberalization of immigrant laws.

If you'd like the chance to receive a free copy of Ellis Island Nation, send an email to pressmkt at pobox dot upenn dot edu with your first name, last name, and your preferred email address by Friday, April 19  at noon Eastern Standard Time. One person will be selected at random to receive a hardcover or ebook copy of Ellis Island Nation.

This Week's New Books: Takedown and Looting and Rape in Wartime, Plus Paperbacks in Human Rights, Early American Studies, Urban Studies, and Religious Studies

Takedown: Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda Philip Mudd 224 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth Apr 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4496-0 | $28.95 | £19.00 Former CIA Deputy Director of Counterterrorism and FBI Senior Intelligence Adviser Philip Mudd recounts his involvement in the fight against Al Qaeda, revealing how intelligence analysts understand and evaluate potential terror threats and communicate with political leaders. Read more . . .

Looting and Rape in Wartime: Law and Change in International Relations Tuba Inal 296 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4476-2 | $75.00 | £49.00 A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series Looting and Rape in Wartime examines the causes of the hundred-year gap between the prohibition against wartime looting and that against rape, theorizing the conditions necessary for the emergence of a global prohibition regime in which a particular practice is not tolerated. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Forgotten Genocides: Oblivion, Denial, and Memory Edited by René Lemarchand 200 pages | 6 x 9 | 4 illus. Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4335-2 | $49.95 | £32.50 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2263-0 | $24.95 | £16.50 A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series In eight case studies written by recognized experts this book offers a major contribution to the comparative analysis of genocidal phenomena. Besides tapping a rich vein of empirical data, this collective effort breaks new ground in analyzing how denial, oblivion, or manipulated memory tends to mask the hideous realities of mass killing. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback The Shame and the Sorrow: Dutch-Amerindian Encounters in New Netherland Donna Merwick 344 pages | 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 | 20 illus. Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2272-2 | $26.50 | £17.50 A volume in the Early American Studies series During the forty years of the Dutch presence in colonial America, their intrusion led to the betrayal of their own values and the betrayal of the indigenous peoples. They reaped the shame of reproaching themselves for unjust wars and faced a native insurgency that they could neither negotiate nor satisfactorily quell. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages Stephen A. Mitchell 384 pages | 6 x 9 | 12 illus Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4290-4 | $49.95 | £32.50 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2255-5 | $24.95 | £16.50 A volume in the Middle Ages Series Stephen A. Mitchell offers the fullest examination available of witchcraft in late medieval Scandinavia, drawing on extensive sources ranging from the Icelandic sagas to those much less familiar to the nonspecialist: legal cases, church frescoes, law codes, ecclesiastical records, and surviving runic spells. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Neighborhood and Life Chances: How Place Matters in Modern America Edited by Harriet B. Newburger, Eugenie L. Birch, and Susan M. Wachter 392 pages | 6 x 9 | 34 illus. Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4258-4 | $59.95 | £39.00 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2265-4 | $28.95 | £19.00 A volume in the City in the Twenty-First Century series Neighborhood and Life Chances brings together researchers from a range of disciplines to demonstrate that place matters in education, physical health, crime, violence, housing, family income, mental health, and discrimination—issues that determine the quality of life among low-income residents of urban areas. Read more . . .

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

Authentic Mock Scrapple

Just because vegetarians are at your table doesn't mean you can't serve traditional Pennsylvania scrapple. This mock scrapple recipe from As American as Shoofly Pie: The Foodlore and Fakelore of Pennsylvania Dutch Cuisine, written by local food historian William Woys Weaver, is in keeping with the Pennsylvania Dutch spirit of making the most of what's at hand or hoof. Just substitute vegetable oil for the bacon drippings or lard when frying, and the dish becomes truly meatless. Penn Press staff member Sara Davis gave the recipe a try. In the essay below, she shares the results with you.

Mock Scrapple (Blinder Panhaas)

1 quart (1 liter) reserved cooking stock from vegetables, peas, or beans
1 cup (200g) parched (dark roasted) cornmeal
1/2 cup (75g) buckwheat flour
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground pepper
1 teaspoon summer savory (dried leaves)
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon powdered hot pepper (optional)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt or to taste

Put the reserved cooking broth in a large saucepan and bring it to a gentle boil. Sift together the cornmeal and the buckwheat into a bowl and pour 2 1/2 cups (625ml) of the hot broth over this. Whisk smooth to remove all lumps, then pour this into the remaining broth. Bring to a gentle boil, stirring constantly to thicken the mixture. After cooking for 15 minutes, add the ground pepper, savory, allspice, and hot pepper if desired. Season with salt. Continue cooking and stirring until the mixture thickens (20 to 30 minutes). Pour this into a small, greased bread pan or an earthenware terrine. Set aside to cool and set. Chill overnight in the refrigerator.

The next day turn out the mock scrapple, slice, and brown in bacon drippings or lard in a hot iron skillet.

The Results

I didn’t grow up in Pennsylvania and never tried scrapple until I’d lived here for several years. To my great surprise, I love it. Never mind what’s in it: good scrapple is crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside, savory and satisfying. So when I saw the recipe for mock scrapple, I knew I had to try it.

Blinder Panhaas is a great dish for the frugal cook to have in her repertoire: the recipe is essentially a means to turn leftover cooking stock and some basic kitchen staples into a tasty accompaniment. As it happens, I am already a committed maker and saver of homemade stock: I freeze vegetable scraps from cooking—carrot peels, onion tops, herb stems—and make a large batch of stock every few months. Furthermore, I had planned two consecutive nights of cooking with my neighbor, who hosts a big dinner party every March, so I had time and company to accommodate the two stages of cooking mock scrapple.

My neighbor and I didn’t have the recommended roasted corn meal and buckwheat flour, so we used oat flour and regular corn meal instead, feeling that it was appropriate to the waste-not-want-not spirit of the dish. But of course, swapping ingredients can change the taste and texture. If we had used the recommended dark grains and bean stock, the scrapple would have had an earthier, possibly nutty flavor; ours was lighter in taste and appearance, resembling a coarse polenta until we added seasoning. We had the savory, coriander, and allspice recommended by the book, which are spices often found in sausage and scrapple, but one could probably substitute other earthy seeds and green herbs (sage or thyme, fennel or caraway) to good effect. We also went with the optional teaspoon of red pepper, which tasted very hot in the uncooked meal but mellowed a great deal with cooking.

Texture-wise, our light flour and corn meal mix was possibly a lot thirstier than roasted grains would have been: my mix soaked up all the stock I poured into it, so it was difficult to whisk. I ended up stirring it with a wooden paddle until it smoothed. Once I poured it back into the hot stock, I found it easier to whisk, but I needed to add a little more stock while the grains cooked. (This also might be a problem with my technique, as I’ve had similar experiences making polenta.)

We poured the cooked meal into a square baking dish and left it in the fridge overnight to set.

The next day, after we’d wrangled a turkey into the oven and prepared several pounds of green beans and Brussels sprouts, I cut the cold, firm scrapple into thick triangles. This pan yielded about thirty-two thick wedges. We fried them in about a quarter inch of vegetable oil (to keep it meatless for visiting vegetarians), flipping each piece once to brown on both sides.

 

Mock Scrapple Frying

The finished triangles tasted pretty good—as most fried things do! We put some on a plate with apple butter, as the book recommends, and really enjoyed the contrast of crispy, savory scrapple with the sweet, tart fruit preserve. We weren’t trying to fool anyone with these, but interestingly, a few late guests supposed that they were eating traditional scrapple. I guess that the combination of savory spices and the familiar creamy cornmeal texture seemed close enough. Others figured they were eating some kind of corn fritter. In any case, the plate we set out as an appetizer was soon empty.

Sara Davis is the Direct Mail and Advertising Manager for Penn Press and the writer behind the scenesofeating.com blog.

Check our Pi/Pie Day post for another staff-pleasing recipe from As American as Shoofly Pie.

Medieval Monday: Pope Gregory VIII, the Audita tremendi, and the Third Crusade

This excerpt from 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, features a translation of the Audita tremendi. This letter, written by Pope Gregory VIII in 1187, was in the words of  Bird, Peters, and Powell "not only the most impassioned plea for a crusade ever issued by a pope until then, but the fullest detailed account of crusaders’ spiritual and temporal rewards and privileges to date."

    The letter circulated widely throughout Europe, inspiring the group of military expeditions that came to be known as the Third Crusade. But the impact of Audita tremendi long outlasted the Third Crusade itself. It inspired a new generation of moral theologians to consider the needs of the Holy Land and to link these to the moral regeneration of Christian Europe, one of the great themes of twelfth and thirteenth-century history. Gregory’s emphasis on the bloody circumstances of the defeat at Hattin, the loss of the True Cross, and the first cities taken by Saladin (the surrender of Jerusalem on October 2, 1187, was not yet known in the West when Audita tremendi was issued) frame his insistence that God’s anger is the result of human sin, that penance is mandatory, not optional, and that a new expedition would be an opportunity for the salvation of Christian warriors. . . .

GREGORY, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to all Christ’s faithful who receive this letter, greeting and apostolic benediction.

    When we heard of the severity of the awesome judgment that the hand of God visited on the land of Jerusalem, we and our brothers were disturbed by such a great horror, afflicted by such sorrows, that we scarcely knew what to do or what we should do, save that the psalmist laments and says, ‘‘O God, the gentiles have invaded your inheritance, they have sullied your holy temple, they have laid waste Jerusalem; they have left the dead bodies of your saints as meat for the beasts of the earth and food the birds of the air . . .’’ [Ps 78:1–2]. In fact, because of the conflict which the malice of [Christian] men has recently brought on the land by the inspiration of the devil, Saladin approached those parts with a host of armed troops. They were confronted by the king and the bishops, the Templars and the Hospitallers, the barons and the knights, with the people of the land, and with the Lord’s cross (through which from memory and faith of the suffering of Christ, who hung there and redeemed the human race, was believed to be a sure safeguard and a desired defense against the attacks of the pagans), and after the battle was joined, our side was defeated and the Lord’s cross was captured. The bishops were slaughtered, the king captured, and almost all our men were either put to the sword or taken prisoner. Very few are believed to have escaped. Also, the Templars and Hospitallers were beheaded in his [Saladin’s] presence. With the army defeated, we do not think our letter can explain how they next invaded and seized every place so that only a few remained outside their power. Still, though we use the words of the prophet: ‘‘Who will give me water for my head and a font of tears for my eyes, and I will weep night and day for the death of my people’’ [Jer 9:1], we ought not despair now and decide to mistrust and believe that God is so angry with his people that in his anger with their commission of a multitude of sins he will not quickly pardon when he is pleased by their penance and, after tears and groans, will lead them to exaltation.

This Week's New Books: The Jet Sex, Evolution of Mind, Brain, and Culture, Stuyvesant Bound, and Owning William Shakespeare

Evolution of Mind, Brain, and Culture Edited by Gary Hatfield and Holly Pittman 496 pages | 6 x 9 | 27 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-1-934536-49-0 | $69.95 | £45.50 A volume in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology series Evolution of Mind, Brain, and Culture draws together studies in archaeology, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, genetics, neuroscience, and environmental science to investigate the evolution of the human mind, the brain, and the human capacity for culture. Read more...

Stuyvesant Bound: An Essay on Loss Across Time Donna Merwick 232 pages | 6 x 9 | 5 illus. Cloth Apr 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4503-5 | $59.95 | £39.00 A volume in the Early American Studies series Stuyvesant Bound is an innovative, compelling reassessment of the last Director-General of New Netherland. Donna Merwick employs a multidisciplinary approach to examine the layers of culture within which Peter Stuyvesant forged his career and performed his identity. Read more...

The Jet Sex: Airline Stewardesses and the Making of an American Icon Victoria Vantoch 304 pages | 6 x 9 | 30 illus. Cloth Apr 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4481-6 | $34.95 | £23.00 Victoria Vantoch takes us on a fascinating journey into the golden era of air travel. The Jet Sex explores the much-mythologized stewardess within the context of the Cold War, globalization, and the emerging culture of glamour to reveal how beauty and sexuality were critical to national identity and international politics. Read more...

Now in Paperback Owning William Shakespeare: The King's Men and Their Intellectual Property James J. Marino 216 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4296-6 | $49.95 | £32.50 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2254-8 | $22.50 | £15.00 A volume in the Material Texts series This book explores actors' systems of intellectual property in early modern England. Focusing on Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, King Lear, and other plays, James Marino demonstrates how Shakespeare's company asserted ownership of its plays through intense ongoing revision and through insistent attribution to Shakespeare. Read more...

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

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...

Getting a Little Color: Catherine Cocks and the Truth about Tanning

In this blog post Catherine Cocks, author of Tropical Whites: The Rise of the Tourist South in the Americas, considers the history of a popular vacation souvenir, the sun tan.

The Truth about Tanning
Catherine Cocks

Every time I told someone I was researching the history of sun tanning for my forthcoming book, that person promptly told me the history of tanning, or at least a popular version of that history. I’m sure it just popped into your mind, too: Back when nearly everyone worked on a farm, being pale was a sign that you were rich and got to stay inside. Once nearly everyone worked in a factory, being tanned was a sign that you were rich and got to play outside. Slate’s Explainer offered a version of this story in October 2012 and tacked onto it the much-repeated myth that tanning was a fad invented by Coco Chanel after the First World War (it appears in her Wikipedia entry, too).

The trouble is that’s not how it happened. At its origins, the history of tanning isn’t about class. It’s about race. What else could changing your skin color be about? Skin color has been a major pretext for inequality for hundreds of years. And the early twentieth century, the era in which U.S. whites began to tan, was the time of Jim Crow’s triumph, explicitly racist immigration restrictions, and a global white supremacist movement. When people talked about tanning back then, they talked about race.

Get Hep Tonight at the Free Library with Zoot Suit Author Kathy Peiss

Kathy Peiss, Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style
The University of Pennsylvania History Department presents The Zoot Suit in American Culture
Wednesday, March 20, 7:00 p.m.
The Free Library of Philadelphia
Parkway Central, 1901 Vine Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
For more information, please contact Nari Baughman at nlinette@sas.upenn.edu.
Register at eventbrite.com