Religion Publishing

“A third of a century ago those of us who were vocationally committed to encouraging scholars tended to commend their prospective books to a few ‘old familiars’ among the university presses that included religious studies in their offerings. Then came Penn State, at first unfamiliar to most of us. Suddenly we noticed that it was publishing series and individual volumes that demonstrated editorial initiative, the ability to produce attractive books, and the ambition to market and place them well. The Press’s own ‘place’ is now secure, and those responsible for this achievement give no sign of losing ambition, interest, or finesse. A third of a century ago citizens liked to say ‘religion is a private affair.’ Today, for better and for worse, it has ‘gone public,’ and Penn State University Press has made major contributions to the scholarly pursuit of religious subjects.”

—Martin E. Marty, University of Chicago

Though not a field developed with as much energy and focus as art history, literature, and philosophy, religion has nevertheless been a pervasive presence on the list from the Press’s early years. Typically, religion has been a topic of books written by scholars in the Press’s main fields of concentration, rather than by scholars in the field of religion itself.

The first three books dealing with religion published by the Press followed this pattern. These were Rum, Religion, and Votes (1962) by sociologist Ruth C. Silva; The Religious Speeches of Bernard Shaw (1963), edited by Warren S. Smith, a literary scholar; and An Introduction to the Philosophy of Saint Augustine (1964) by philosopher John A. Mourant. The trend continues today, with all of these fields regularly featuring titles in religion and its history, particularly in relation to medieval studies. Religion has thus been well represented in the Press’s publishing program, despite seldom being the focus of any acquiring editor’s activity, and our books on religion have garnered considerable critical acclaim as well as commercial success. In fact, Press titles have won major awards from scholarly associations in religion, and one of the top two best sellers for the Press historically—with sales exceeding 25,000 copies—is The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti: A Mahayana Scripture (1976), a translation by renowned Buddhist scholar Robert A. F. Thurman.

In three periods of its history, Penn State Press published books on religion that were primarily the product of religion departments or divinity schools. In the 1970s, perhaps because of the renewed interest in Eastern religions spurred by hippie culture, scholarship on Buddhism flourished, and the Press issued a number of books on the subject that have become staples of the backlist, selling steadily year after year. By far the most successful of these has been Thurman’s Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti, which developed from an arrangement the Press established with the Institute for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University. Some others came courtesy of Penn State’s own leading Buddhist scholar, Charles Prebisch, whose edited volume Buddhism: A Modern Perspective (1975) has enjoyed a long and influential life.

The second wave came in the late 1980s, when senior editor Philip Winsor made a concerted effort to build up the religion list. The Press brought out a dozen books by theologians, including some of the leaders in the field, such as Rowan Greer, Stanley Hauerwas, Wesley Kort, Gilbert Meilaender, and Paul Ramsey. And two Press series, edited by prominent scholars of religion, were launched in the mid-1990s. Penn State Studies in Lived Religious Experience, edited by Judith Van Herik, focused on “books that interpret religions by studying personal experience in its historical, geographical, social, and cultural settings.” Among its offerings were two books by Lee Hoinacki, titled El Camino: Walking to Santiago de Compostela (1996) and Stumbling Toward Justice: Stories of Place (1999). The other series— Hermeneutics: Studies in the History of Religions, edited by Kees Bolle—ranged widely both in subject matter, from the Neoplatonism of Iamblichus to Adavita Vedanta, and geographical focus, from the Maori of New Zealand to the Golden Horde of Central Asia. Several books in the series garnered major prizes.

In his role as acquiring editor in history and social science, Peter Potter developed three additional series that provided outlets for books with religious themes. For a number of years the Press, by arrangement with the Conference on Faith and History, published books based on dissertations that had won the Kenneth Scott Latourette Prize in Religion and Modern History—the last one being William R. Sutton’s Journeymen for Jesus: Evangelical Artisans Confront Capitalism in Jacksonian Baltimore (1998). And in 1998, initially in cooperation with Britain’s Sutton Publishing and later on its own, the Press undertook publishing the Magic in History series, edited by Richard Kieckhefer. This series has been a remarkable success, commercially and critically. It brought some older titles, such as Elizabeth M. Butler’s Ritual Magic and The Fortunes of Faust, back into print; it has also produced new works, such as Kieckhefer’s own Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century (1998) and W. F. Ryan’s The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia (1999). Finally, the Penn State Library of Jewish Literature, a series edited by Baruch Halpern and Aminadav Dykman, began with the 2005 publication of Avodah: Ancient Poems for Yom Kippur, edited and translated by Michael D. Swartz and Joseph Yahalom. The series aims to “present Jewish and Hebrew works from all eras and cultures, offering both scholars and general readers original, modern translations of previously overlooked texts.”

As varied in subject matter and scattered across disciplinary terrains as the religion list may be, it constitutes an important part of Penn State Press’s publishing legacy and forms a solid basis on which future editors can build.

“I admire what Penn State Press has accomplished in the area of religion. The list includes many books that are already widely recognized as essential reading in the field and others that, in my opinion, deserve wider recognition than they have yet received. It strikes an apt balance between the rigorous scholarship of writers like James Turner Johnson, Douglas Langston, Gordon Michalson, and John P. Reeder and the bold, creative, visionary thinking of writers like James C. Edwards and Stanley Hauerwas.”

—Jeffrey Stout, Princeton University

Choice Outstanding Academic Books

Craig D. Atwood, Community of the Cross: Moravian Piety in Colonial Bethlehem (2004)

Naomi Janowitz, Icons of Power: Ritual Practices in Late Antiquity (2003)

Rachel Feldhay Brenner, Writing as Resistance: Four Women Confronting the Holocaust—Edith Stern, Simone Weil, Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum (1997)

James Turner Johnson, The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions (1997)

Devin DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition (1994)

Allen C. Guelzo, For the Union of Evangelical Christendom: The Irony of the Reformed Episcopalians (1994)

Gilles Kepel, The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in the Modern World (1994)

Sylvia Walsh, Living Poetically: Kierkegaard’s Existential Aesthetics (1994)

Book Prizes

Craig D. Atwood, Community of the Cross: Moravian Piety in Colonial Bethlehem (2005 Dale W. Brown Book Award in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Young Center at Elizabethtown College)

Jeff Bach, Voices of the Turtledoves: The Sacred World of Ephrata (2005 Outstanding Publication Award, Communal Studies Association; 2004 Dale W. Brown Book Award in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Young Center at Elizabethtown College)

Kathleen Curran, The Romanesque Revival: Religion, Politics, and Transnational Exchange (2005 Henry-Russell Hitchcock Book Award, The Victorian Society in America)

David Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans: From Protest to Persecution in the Century After Saint Francis (2003 Otto Gründler Prize, The Medieval Institute; 2002 John Gilmary Shea Prize and 2002 Howard R. Marraro Prize, American Catholic Historical Association)

Renate Wilson, Pious Traders in Medicine: German Pharmaceutical Networks in Eighteenth-Century North America (2003 St. Paul Prize, Lutheran Historical Society of the Mid-Atlantic Region; 2002 Kremers Award, Institute for the History of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin, Madison)

John Lowden, The Making of the Bibles Moralisées, Vol. i: The Manuscripts (2002 Otto Gründler Prize, The Medieval Institute)

Lynette M. F. Bosch, Art, Liturgy, and Legend in Renaissance Toledo: The Mendoza and the Iglesia Primada (2001 Eleanor Tufts Award, American Society for Hispanic Art Historical Studies)

Kenneth J. Heineman, A Catholic New Deal: Religion and Reform in Depression Pittsburgh (2000 Philip S. Klein Book Prize, Pennsylvania Historical Association)

Nadieszda Kizenko, A Prodigal Saint: Father John of Kronstadt and the Russian People (2000 Heldt Prize, Association for Women in Slavic Studies)

James C. Edwards, The Plain Sense of Things: The Fate of Religion in an Age of Normal Nihilism (1999 John N. Findlay Award, Metaphysical Society of America)

Heinrich Fichtenau, Heretics and Scholars in the High Middle Ages, 1000–1200, trans. Denise A. Kaiser (1999 Ungar Prize, American Translators Association; 1998 Bookman News Exceptional Book)

Lutz Kaelber, Schools of Asceticism: Ideology and Organization in Medieval Religious Communities (1999 Book of the Year Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association)

Charles D. Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom: The Scripture for Humane Kings in the Creation of Chinese Buddhism (1999 Best First Book in the History of Religions, American Academy of Religion)

Glennys Young, Power and the Sacred in Revolutionary Russia: Religious Activists in the Village (Honorable Mention, 1999 Hans Rosenhaupt Memorial Book Award, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation)

Richard Kieckhefer, Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century (1998 Bookman News Exceptional Book)

Samuel Terrien, The Iconography of Job Through the Centuries: Artists as Interpreters (1997 Best Book Relating to the Old Testament, Biblical Archaeology Society)

Robert Zaretsky, Nîmes at War: Religion, Politics, and Public Opinion in the Gard, 1938–1944 (1997 Hans Rosenhaupt Memorial Book Award, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation)

Devin DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition (1995 Best First Book in the History of Religions, American Academy of Religion; 1995 Albert Hourani Book Award, Middle East Studies Association)

William R. Sutton, Journeymen for Jesus: Evangelical Artisans Confront Capitalism in Jacksonian Baltimore (1994 Kenneth Scott Latourette Prize in Religion and Modern History, Conference on Faith and History)

Allen C. Guelzo, For the Union of Evangelical Christendom: The Irony of the Reformed Episcopalians (1993 Albert C. Outler Prize in Ecumenical History, American Society of Church History)

David W. Kling, A Field of Divine Wonders: The New Divinity and Village Revivals in Northwestern Connecticut, 1792–1822 (1991 Kenneth Scott Latourette Prize in Religion and Modern History, Conference on Faith and History)

Richard P. Gildrie, The Profane, the Civil, and the Godly: The Reformation of Manners in Orthodox New England, 1679–1749 (1990 Kenneth Scott Latourette Prize in Religion and Modern History, Conference on Faith and History)

Thomas F. Mathews, The Early Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy (1973 Alice David Hitchcock Book Award, Society of Architectural Historians)

Best Sellers

Robert A. F. Thurman, trans., The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti (1976): 25,000+

Garma C. C. Chang, Buddhist Teaching of Totality (1971): 9,000+

Anne Winston-Allen, Stories of the Rose (1997): 8,000+

Charles Prebisch, Buddhism (1975): 7,000+

A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation (2nd ed., 1999): 6,500+

Gilles Kepel, The Revenge of God (1994): 5,500+

Richard Kieckhefer, Forbidden Rites (1998): 5,000+

Paul J. Archambault, trans., A Monk’s Confession (1995): 5,000+

Francis Cook, Hua-Yen Buddhism (1977): 4,000+

Thomas F. X. Noble and Thomas Head, eds., Soldiers of Christ (1995): 4,000+

Robert H. Nelson, Economics as Religion (2001): 3,500+