Austin Sarat

Austin Sarat (born November 2, 1947) is an American political scientist who is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He is also a Five College Fortieth Anniversary Professor. He has written, co-written, or edited more than fifty books in the fields of law and political science.

Education Professor Sarat received a B.A. from Providence College in 1969, and both an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1970 and 1973, respectively. He also received a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1988.

He was awarded an MA ad eundem gradum by Amherst College in 1984 and an honorary LLD from his undergraduate alma mater Providence College in 2008.

Career Sarat's primary research interest is the use of the death penalty, which he refers to as "state killing."

Sarat has received the Ronald Pipkin Service Award, awarded annually to a Law and Society Association member who has demonstrated sustained and extraordinary service to the Association, 2014. He also has received the Lasting Contribution Award, awarded by the American Political Science Association’s Section on Law and Courts “for a book or journal article, 10 years or older, that has made a lasting impression on the field of law and courts.” Recognizing "The Emergence of Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming," 2011. Sarat also received an Honorary Doctor of Laws at Providence College.

Publications Lethal Injection and the False Promise of Humane Execution, with Mattea Denney, Nicolas Graber-Mitchell, Greene Ko, Lauren Pelosi, and Rose Mroczka. Stanford University Press, 2022. Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America's Death Penalty: Stanford University Press, 2014 Re-imagining To Kill a Mockingbird: Family, Community, and the Possibility of Equal Justice under Law. University of Massachusetts Press, 2013 Legal Responses to Religious Practices in the United States: Accommodation and its Limits. Cambridge University Press, 2012 The Secrets of Law, with Lawrence Douglas and Martha Umphrey. Stanford University Press, 2012 Imaging New Legalities: Privacy and its Possibilities in the Twenty First Century, with Lawrence Douglas and Martha Umphrey. Stanford University Press, 2011 Life Without Parole: America’s New Death Penalty?, with Charles Ogletree NYU Press, 2012 Dissenting Voices in American Society: The Role of Judges, Lawyers, and Citizens. Cambridge University Press, 2012 Merciful Judgments and Contemporary Society: Legal Problems, Legal Possibilities. Cambridge University Press, 2011 Transitions: Legal Changes, Legal Meanings University of Alabama Press, 2011 Who Deserves to Die, with Karl Shoemaker University of Massachusetts Press, 2011 Imagining Legality: When Law Meets Popular Culture. University of Alabama Press, 2011 Options for Teaching: Teaching Literature and Law, with Cathrine O. Frank and Matthew Anderson. Modern Language Association, 2011 Law as Punishment/Law as Regulation, with Lawrence Douglas and Martha Umphrey. Stanford University Press, 2011 Is the Death Penalty Dying?: European and American Perspectives Cambridge University Press, 2011 Subjects of Responsibility, with Andrew Parker and Martha Umphrey Fordham University Press, 2011 Law Without Nations, with Lawrence Douglas and Martha Umphrey. Stanford University Press, 2010 Performances of Violence, with Carleen Basler and Tom Dumm University of Massachusetts Press, 2010 When Government Breaks the Law: Prosecuting the Bush Administration, with Nasser Hussain. New York University Press, 2010 Law and the Stranger, with Lawrence Douglas and Martha Umphrey Stanford University Press, 2010 Speech and Silence in American Law. Cambridge University Press, 2010 Sovereignty, Emergency, Legality. Cambridge University Press, 2010 Law and the Humanities: An Introduction, with Cathrine O. Frank and Matthew Anderson. Cambridge University Press, 2009 The Road to Abolition, with Charles Ogletree. New York University Press. Crisis and Catastrophe: Political, Legal, and Humanitarian Responses, with Javier Lezaun. University of Massachusetts Press, 2009 When Law Fails: Making Sense of Miscarriages of Justice. ed., with Charles Ogletree. New York University Press, 2009 The Cultural Lives of Cause Lawyers, ed., with Stuart Scheingold. Stanford University Press, 2008 Forgiveness, Mercy, Clemency, ed., with Nasser Hussain. Stanford University Press, 2007 Trauma and Memory: Reading, Healing, and Making Law, ed., with Michal Alberstein and Nadav Davidovitch. Stanford University Press, 2007 Cause Lawyers and Social Movements, ed., with Stuart Scheingold. Stanford University Press, 2006 From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and The Death Penalty in America, ed. with Charles Ogletree. New York University Press, 2006 The Cultural Life of Capital Punishment: Comparative Perspectives, ed., with Christian Boulanger. Stanford University Press, 2005 Mercy on Trial: What It Means To Stop an Execution. Princeton University Press, 2005 The Limits of Law, ed., with Lawrence Douglas and Martha Umphrey. Stanford University Press, 2005 Law on the Screen, ed., with Lawrence Douglas and Martha Umphrey. Stanford University Press, 2005 Dissent in Dangerous Times ed., University of Michigan Press, 2005 Something to Believe In: Politics, Professionalism, and Cause Lawyers, with Stuart Scheingold. Stanford University Press, 2004 Law in the Liberal Arts, ed., Cornell University Press, 2004 Cultural Analysis, Cultural Studies and the Law: Moving Beyond Legal Realism, ed., with Jonathan Simon. Duke University Press, 2003 Looking Back At Law's Century: Time, Memory, and Change, ed., with Bryant Garth and Robert Kagan. Cornell University Press, 2002 When the State Kills: Capital Punishment and the American Condition. Princeton University Press, 2001 Law, Violence, and the Possibility of Justice, ed., Princeton University Press, 2001 Pain, Death, and the Law, ed., University of Michigan Press 2001