Austin Sarat
Austin Sarat is interested broadly in the cultural and social life of American law. He is currently pursuing several lines of research, among are the American values and beliefs revealed by state killings. Sarat uses the death penalty as a lens through which to view ideas about responsibility and blame, pain and its proper uses, race and fairness, mercy and the possibilities of redemption. Sarat recently completed a book-length study of the decline of executive clemency in capital cases and a study of race and capital punishment in the United States.
Sarat's research also focuses on the cultural life of law or law in popular culture. He is now writing a book entitled Hollywood’s Law: What Movies Do for Democracy. This book examines movies about law from 1950 to 2000 in order to understand how these films contribute to the development of democratic citizenship.
At Amherst College, Sarat teaches an introduction to Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought and a first-year Seminar, Secrets and Lies, and a class about murder.
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DOJ plans 1,000 election monitors in all 50 states for Election Day
The Justice Department told a court no FBI or ICE employees will serve and monitors will not carry firearms; the NAACP calls the plan voter intimidation.
An epic backlash to defy Trumpism, its lying hypocrisy and pigheaded failures
This election isn’t about choosing a favorite ice cream but between ice cream and rat poisoning.
“Chaos” in the Air: Five Ways Voting Could Be Disrupted on Election Day
The Trump administration has initiated a string of unprecedented actions to assert more federal control over elections. While courts have thwarted most of the plans, voting experts remain concerned about potential problems at the polls.
EPA sets Dec. 31 end date for its archive of past agency records
The archive holds tens of thousands of documents dating to the 1990s; the agency says historical material will remain in “snapshot collections.”
Rural Charms Drew Residents to Taylor, Texas. Then Came the Data Centers.
A local family sold an 87-acre tract to a parks foundation for $10 “to be held in trust for future use as a parkland.” Later, the city’s Economic Development Corporation sold the land to a data center developer for $10 million.