Originally broadcast at 2 p.m. ET Monday, July 25, 2022.

Professor Sherman J. Clark graduated from the Harvard Law School and practiced with the law firm of Kirkland and Ellis before joining the faculty of the Michigan Law School. He teaches courses on torts, evidence, and legal ethics. Clark’s current research focuses on the connections between politics, law, character, and well-being. He believes that legal and political rules, practices, and rhetoric play an indirect but significant role in making us who we are as individuals and citizens; and that in turn plays a role in whether and how we and our communities thrive. He thus seeks to identify and call attention to unrecognized or unacknowledged ways in which law and politics may construct or influence our character and our capacity to thrive and meet the demands of democratic citizenship. In this vein, drawing on classical philosophy, modern psychology, political theory, literature, and law, he has written about institutions and practices ranging from direct democracy to the jury to criminal procedure.

About Chautauqua Institution: Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue. CHQ Assembly is the online expression of Chautauqua Institution's mission.