Penn State University Press

• 1. Introduction

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  Penn State University Press published its very first book under a plain title: Penn State Yankee, the autobiography of Fred Lewis Pattee. Pattee was a noted member of the Penn State faculty and the first professor of American literature in the United States. That modest debut opened a publishing house that now answers to a much larger mission. Established in 1956, the Press operates as the independent publishing branch of the Pennsylvania State University. It also sits inside the Penn State University Library system, a structural detail that shapes how it operates today.

  What does it mean for a university press to serve both international scholars and the people of a single American state? How did a house that opened with one professor's memoir come to publish work on medieval ghost stories and graphic novels? And what has it built, bought, and launched to reach the scale it operates at now?

• 2. Mission And Mandate

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  As part of a land-grant university, the Press carries a mandate to serve the citizens of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. That mandate shows up directly in its catalog: it specializes in books about Penn State University, the state of Pennsylvania, and the wider mid-Atlantic region. The catalog reaches beyond regional subjects too, offering books and journals meant for scholars and general readers alike.

  Six named fields anchor its scholarly identity: art history, medieval studies, Latin American studies, rhetoric and communication, religious studies, and graphic medicine. The Press also runs several internship programs for Penn State students who want a career in publishing, carrying that public mission directly onto campus.

• 3. Growth In Numbers

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  The Press turns out roughly 80 books a year, alongside more than 60 journals it publishes on an ongoing basis. A staff of 25 to 30 people keeps that full schedule of books and journals running year after year. Running an operation at that scale meant the Press could not stay fixed in shape forever. It began adding new imprints and acquiring other publishers to keep pace with its own growth.

• 4. New Imprints And Acquisitions

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  In 2016, the Press launched PSU Press Unlocked, an open-access platform featuring more than 70 of its books and journals. A year later, in November 2017, it acquired Eisenbrauns, an academic publisher specializing in ancient Near East and biblical studies. Eisenbrauns has continued publishing as an imprint of the Press rather than as an independent house. In 2021, the Press added another new line: Graphic Mundi, an imprint devoted to graphic novels. That growing shelf of imprints fed a wider range of authors and voices whose books built the Press's reputation.

• 5. A Shelf Of Notable Titles

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  Elizabeth Marshall Thomas wrote one title on that list, The Hidden Life of Life: A Walk through the Reaches of Time. Niall Atkinson's The Noisy Renaissance: Sound, Architecture, and Florentine Urban Life examined sound and city life in Renaissance Florence. Six credited authors, MK Czerwiec, Ian Williams, Susan Merrill Squier, Michael J. Green, Kimberly R. Myers, and Scott T. Smith, wrote Graphic Medicine Manifesto together.

  Colm Tóibín teamed with Marc Simpson and Declan Kiely on Henry James and American Painting, connecting the novelist to visual art. Patrick Murphy explored a different kind of ghost story in Medieval Studies and the Ghost Stories of M. R. James. Bill Russell took a more practical turn with Field Guide to Wild Mushrooms of Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic. James M. Hutchisson covered a major American writer's life in Ernest Hemingway: A New Life. Robert Thurman contributed an English translation of The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti to the catalog. Amritjit Singh closed out the list with The Novels of the Harlem Renaissance: Twelve Black Writers, 1923-1933. Books, though, are only one branch of what the Press produces, and its journals span an equally wide set of subjects.

• 6. A World Of Journals

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  ab-Original: Journal of Indigenous Studies and First Nations and First Peoples' Cultures was edited by the Australian linguist Jakelin Troy. Its first issue appeared in 2017, but by 2023 the journal appeared to be archived rather than actively publishing.

  The Cormac McCarthy Journal and The Edgar Allan Poe Review both take their names from a single writer. So do The Mark Twain Annual and the William Carlos Williams Review, among others on the list. Still others focus on a single dramatist or novelist. Examples include SHAW: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies, The Eugene O'Neill Review, and the Thornton Wilder Journal. The subject range widens further with titles like Bulletin for Biblical Research, Critical Philosophy of Race, and Transportation Journal, each covering a distinct academic field. Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies stands out as one clearly local title among an otherwise international list of subjects.

  The list continues on to include titles like the Journal of Africana Religions and the Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture. Each one represents a distinct research community that the Press chose to give its own dedicated outlet.