Democracy, Random Choice, and the Ancient Athenian Kleroterion

When: Thursday, September 24, 2026 Time: 12:00–1:30 pm Where: British & Irish Studies Room (Norlin Library M549, 5th Floor) RSVP here About the Event The kleroterion was a device—a machine, a mechanical computer—for randomly choosing jurors in ancient Athens, notably in the age of Demosthenes (384–322 b.c.). Though Aristotle gives us some information about it, and archeology has uncovered some fragments of such machines, their full functionality has not been entirely determined. But the humanist scholar and patent-holding technologist Justin Blessinger has now reconstructed the mechanical device, bringing his creation to CU to demonstrate how it worked and the accuracy of randomized results it produced. Building on Dr. Blessinger’s demonstration, the Benson Center’s visiting scholar, Joseph Bottum, will speak on the political theory of sortition and random selection—a theory revived in recent decades. About the Speaker Justin Blessinger is a professor of English at Dakota State Univers...