This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

Catholic lore, American tales, and Sicilian superstition blend in this “clever, funny, heartbreaking, and heartwarming” novel (Publishers Weekly). Born with unruly red hair, a sharp tongue, and wine-colored marks all over her body—marks that oddly mimick a map of the world and make her subject to endless ridicule—Garnet Ferrari would hardly consider herself blessed. So when an emissary from the Vatican shows up at her door, convinced that her seeming ability to cure the skin ailments of others qualifies her for sainthood, she’s not quite convinced—or pleased. Garnet sets off on a quest to better understand who she is and where she and her unusual gifts came from. Tracing a twisted path that leads from Sicily to West Virginia, poverty to riches, romance to loss, reality to mythology, Garnet uncovers a truth far more powerful than any dermatological miracle: that the things of which we are most ashamed often become our greatest strengths. “A cleareyed, touching fable of a girl learning the hard truths about herself and others.” —Kirkus Reviews

A collection of essays from the influential American journal of film, video and photography, exploring ideologies and institutions of the artworld; current media strategies for producing social change; and topics around gender, race and representation. I

Policy Patrons offers a rare behind-the-scenes view of decision making inside four influential education philanthropies: the Ford Foundation, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. The outcome is an intriguing, thought-provoking look at the impact of current philanthropic efforts on education. Over a period of several years, Megan E. Tompkins-Stange gained the trust of key players and outside observers of these four organizations. Through a series of confidential interviews, she began to explore the values, ideas, and beliefs that inform these foundations’ strategies and practices. The picture that emerges reveals important differences in the strategies and values of the more established foundations vis-à-vis the newer, more activist foundations—differences that have a significant impact on education policy and practice, and have important implications for democratic decision making. In recent years, the philanthropic sector has played an increasing role in championing and financing education reform. Policy Patrons makes an original and invaluable contribution to contemporary discussions about the appropriate role of foundations in public policy and the future direction of education reform.

An analysis of Italian Renaissance art from the perspective of the patrons who made 'conspicuous commissions', this text builds on three concepts from the economics of information - signaling, signposting, and stretching - to develop a systematic methodology for assessing the meaning of patronage.

In the American mind, state subsidization of writers and artists was long associated with monarchies and, in later years, socialist states. The support these regimes gave to intellectuals was understood to come with a cost, yet, beginning with the New Deal's Federal Writers', Art, and Theater Projects, a new policy consensus asserted that by offering financial support to the arts, the federal government was affirming their importance to the nation.Subsidizing Culture examines the development of and controversies surrounding federal programs that directly benefit writers, artists, and intellectuals. James T. Bennett examines four cases of such support: the New Deal's Federal Writers', Art, and Theater Projects; the vigorous promotion, in the post-World War II and early Cold War eras, of abstract expressionism and other forms of modern art by the US government; the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which has fortified its position as the preeminent arts bureaucracy; and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the NEA's less embattled twin, which funnels monies to scholars.Bennett concentrates on the creation of and the debate over these government programs, and he gives special attention to the critics, who are usually ignored. He reminds us that the chorus of anti-subsidy voices over the years has included such disparate figures as writers William Faulkner and John Updike; artists John Sloan and Wheeler Williams; and social critics Jacques Barzun and H.L. Mencken.