Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at
Amherst College. Professor Sarat is a pioneering figure in the development of legal study in the liberal arts, of the humanistic study of law, and of the cultural study of law. He is also an internationally renowned scholar of capital punishment, specializing in efforts to understand its social, political, and cultural significance in the United States.

Professor Sarat founded both Amherst College’s Department of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social
Thought and the national scholarly association, The Association for the Study of Law, Culture,
and the Humanities. He is former President of that Association and has also served as President
of the Law and Society Association and of the Consortium of Undergraduate Law and Justice
Programs.
He is author or editor of more than one hundred books including Lethal Injection and the False
Promise of Humane Execution, The Death Penalty on the Ballot: American Democracy and the
Fate of Capital Punishment, Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death
Penalty, The Road to Abolition?

Other books include Something to Believe in: Politics, Professionalism, and Cause Lawyers
(with Stuart Scheingold); Cultural Analysis, Cultural Studies and the Law: Moving Beyond
Legal Realism (with Jonathan Simon)

Professor Sarat has received numerous prizes and awards including the Jeffrey Ferguson
Memorial Teaching Award given by Amherst College for distinguished teaching and
contributions to the curriculum and the intellectual life of the college; The Harry Kalven Award
given by the Law Society Association for distinguished research on law and society; the Reginald Heber Smith Award given biennially to honor the best scholarship on the subject of equal access to justice”; the James Boyd White Award, from the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities, given for distinguished scholarly achievement and “outstanding and innovative” contributions to the humanistic study of law; the Stan Wheeler Prize. awarded by the Law Society Association, for distinguished teaching and mentoring of undergraduate, graduate, or professional students working on issues of law and society and many more.

His public writing has appeared in such places as The Washington Post, NBC. com, The New
Republic, The Guardian, The Hill, The Boston Globe, The Cleveland Plain-Dealer, The San
Francisco Chronicle, The National Law Journal, The Providence Journal, The Los Angeles
Times, The American Prospect, Aljazeera America, Slate, Salon, USA Today, US News, CNN,
Politico, and The Daily Beast.

He has been a commentator or guest on The Asleigh Banfield Show, HuffPost Live, Bloomberg
Radio, National Public Radio, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, WGN NewsNation,
Public Television’s The News Hour, Odyssey, The Why? On Newsy, Democracy Now, RT
International, ABC World News Tonight, MSNBC, Aljazeera America TV, Sputnik News-
Moscow, All In with Chris Hayes, The Point with Ari Melber, and The O'Reilly Factor.
A profile of him in US News and World Report noted that he is “one of the best loved professors
at Amherst College” and praised his teaching for combining “innovation and inspiration.” His
teaching also has been featured in The New York Times among others.