New & Noteworthy
Your BMC Bookshop uses this page to highlight new books published within the past few months by BMC alums, faculty and staff. Please email us at bookshop@brynmawr.edu if you have a new release.
Augustine the African
by Catherine Conybeare
Leslie Clark Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Greek, Latin and Classical Studies
Publishes August 12, 2025 - Pre-Order now!
Augustine of Hippo (354-430), also known as Saint Augustine, was one of the most influential theologians in history. His writings, including the autobiographical Confessions and The City of God, helped shape the foundations of Christianity and Western philosophy. But for many centuries, Augustine's North African birth and Berber heritage have been simply dismissed. Catherine Conybeare, a world-renowned Augustine scholar, here puts the "African" back in Augustine's story. As she relates, his seminal books were written neither in Rome nor in Milan, but in Africa, where he had returned as a wanderer during a perilous time when the Western Roman Empire was crumbling. Using extant letters and other shards of evidence, Conybeare retraces Augustine's travels, revealing how his groundbreaking works emerge from an exile's perspective within an African context. In its depiction of this Christian saint, Augustine the African upends conventional wisdom and traces core ideas of Christian thought to their origins on the African continent.
Earthborn Democracy
by Joel Alden Schlosser et al
Associate Professor of Political Science
Ecological crises threaten all forms of life on earth. Democracy too is endangered, as popular discontent, elite malfeasance, and unresponsive institutions imperil its survival. Present political concepts have proven inadequate to meeting these challenges, and their inadequacies are themselves symptoms of the failures of prevailing political, cultural, and ecological stories and practices.
This book offers a new vision of ecological and participatory democratic life for a time of crisis. Identifying myth and ritual as key resources for contemporary politics, Earthborn Democracy excavates practices and narratives that illustrate the interdependence necessary to inspire ecological renewal. It tells stories of multispecies agency and egalitarian political organization across history, from ancient Mesopotamia and the precolonial Americas to contemporary social movements, emphasizing Indigenous traditions and resistance. Resonating across these practices and stories past and present is a belief that we are all--human as well as nonhuman--earthborn, and this can serve as the basis for reimagining democracy. Allying visionary political theory with environmental activism, Earthborn Democracy provides a foundation and a guide for collective action in pursuit of earthly flourishing.Blue Yodel
Brightwood Code
Broken
by Lisa Young Larance - Assistant Professor at GSSWSR
Author's Website: www.lisayounglarance.com
Disquieting Death of Emma Gill
Glorious Bodes
Modern Guide to Human Design
Wouldn't it be great if we were handed an instruction manual, not only for ourselves but the people we love? Our Human Design chart is this blueprint for navigating life as our true selves, releasing outside pressures and beliefs, and allowing our innate magic to shine.
The world teaches us that the truth comes from outside of us--family, friends, experts, institutions--and that we make our best decisions with logic. Human design proposes a new reality: We each have a built-in navigation system. We are each wired for our own unique purpose!
Have you realized that things go smoothly when you trust your gut? You might be a Generator. Do you need to "sleep on it" when making a big decision? You might have Emotional Authority. Has anyone ever told you that you give the best advice? You could be a Projector. Do you bristle when others tell you what to do because you know you're here to impact the world by doing things your way? You may have a Manifestor aura. Have you always just felt more sensitive and different than everyone around you? You might be part of the 1% as a rare Reflector.
The best thing about human design is that it recognizes something we all know but often forget: We are all different. Our human design chart is the tangible blueprint for moving away from living the life that society expects of us and stepping into our special gifts and magic. Wouldn't it be incredible to have an instruction manual explaining how to have the best relationship with your child, partner, friends, or coworkers? This guide empowers us to allow everyone, including ourselves, to be who they are truly meant to be.
Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea
by Michelle Francl - Frank B. Mallory Professor of Chemistry
Author's website: www.michellefrancldonnay.com
Signed copies are available now, the perfect gift this holiday season!
Beginning with a leaf to cup introduction, this book looks at the molecular makeup of different types of tea, discusses brewing and steeping, and the age-old question of when, or even whether, to add milk.