Steven Balkin
Biographic Data
| ID | 307417 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Steven Balkin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Steven |
| FAMILY NAME | Balkin |
| SIGNATURE | BALKIN S |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Melbourne |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1430-9063 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 58 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Expository spirits
There is a long tradition of aligning vampires with media, dating back to Dracula's defeat by humans using modern communication technologies. This article examines an earlier, more elemental vampire in J.R. Planché's 1820 stage melodrama The Vampire. Planché's play was staged during a period when the definition of media was shifting from the natural elements toward human communication technologies. Building on John Durham Peters' expanded notion …
Editor’s introduction, special issue on ‘the comic audience’
Can AI read the room
Authorship across media
On Quitting
Like Hannah Gadsby, Dave Chappelle understands the art of quitting. At the end of his 2021 Netflix special The Closer, a show full of jokes about LGBTQ people, Chappelle announces that he is "done" making such jokes "until we are both sure that we are laughing together." Chappelle's performance of quitting inverts the politics and structure of Gadsby's Nanette (2017), in which she infamously quit comedy because it reinforced her marginalization a…
The Killjoy Comedian
In her 2017 show Nanette , Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby announced that she was quitting comedy. In the show, Gadsby argued that as a marginalized person – a gender-nonconforming lesbian from rural Tasmania – she was doing herself a disservice when she invited audiences to laugh at her trademark self-deprecating humour. Gadsby framed her decision to quit comedy partly as a problem of persona: her practice as a comedian was to take actual, som…
Archival contingencies
Ernest Scott (1867–1939), an early history professor at the University of Melbourne, left thirteen thousand books to the university library after his death. This article considers Scott’s books, many of which contain subject-specific newspaper clippings and annotations, as an archive in a state of institutional flux. Scott’s books and clippings give us insight into what historian of the modern research university William Clark calls ‘the material…
My relationship to the public is changing”
Marina Abramović: In Residence (2015) was a participatory public art project that relied on “facilitators” trained in the Abramović Method. As in other later works of Abramović’s performance practice, the artist’s presence is implied in the bodies of facilitators and participants. Situating In Residence in a longer history of institutional performance takes into account Abramović’s self-positioning as the charismatic undead
Entrepreneurial Activities of Homeless Men
Encouraging and assisting homeless people to become self-employed provides a way for some of them to increase their incomes, and may help close the gap between the cost of housing and labor market earnings. A survey of operators of homeless shelters was conducted to determine the types of work activities that adult homeless men participate in. Self-employment was found to be a common activity for a substantial proportion of adult homeless men; an…
Quality and Cost Comparisons of Private Bar Indigent Defense Systems
The Supreme Court decisions of Powell v. Alabama,' Gideon v. Wainwright2 and Argersinger v. Hamlin3 have had tremendous impact on the operation of the state criminal courts. These decisions have forced jurisdictions to broaden the right to counsel during adjudication and to establish some systematic organization for providing representation for indigent defendants. Other Supreme Court rulings have extended the right to counsel for indigents in ar…
Citizen Demand for Exposure to Street Crime
If individuals gain utility from activities which expose them to the risk of being a victim of crime, then a higher risk of victimisation per unit of time exposed to crime should imply a lower quantity of exposure. This hypothesis leads to the distinction between the 'real' crime rate (probability of victimisation per unit of exposure time) and the 'nominal' crime rate (crimes per capita). Empirical evidence is presented which indicates that some…
Workers as Guardians of the Street
The market for street crime
Victimization Rates, Safety and Fear of Crime
A model is postulated of how victimization rates, safety and fear of crime interrelate. Certain population groups and cities show higher levels of fear of crime but lower measured victimization rates. According to the model this can happen because certain groups that do have higher “real” risks of victimization expose themselves less to crime and hence show lower measured victimization rates. The model also implies that even though victimization …
Victimization Rates, Safety and Fear of Crime
A model is postulated of how victimization rates, safety and fear of crime interrelate. Certain population groups and cities show higher levels of fear of crime but lower measured victimization rates. According to the model this can happen because certain groups that do have higher “real” risks of victimization expose themselves less to crime and hence show lower measured victimization rates. The model also implies that even though victimization …
On Quitting
Like Hannah Gadsby, Dave Chappelle understands the art of quitting. At the end of his 2021 Netflix special The Closer, a show full of jokes about LGBTQ people, Chappelle announces that he is "done" making such jokes "until we are both sure that we are laughing together." Chappelle's performance of quitting inverts the politics and structure of Gadsby's Nanette (2017), in which she infamously quit comedy because it reinforced her marginalization a…
Entrepreneurial Activities of Homeless Men
Encouraging and assisting homeless people to become self-employed provides a way for some of them to increase their incomes, and may help close the gap between the cost of housing and labor market earnings. A survey of operators of homeless shelters was conducted to determine the types of work activities that adult homeless men participate in. Self-employment was found to be a common activity for a substantial proportion of adult homeless men; an…
Quality and Cost Comparisons of Private Bar Indigent Defense Systems
The Supreme Court decisions of Powell v. Alabama,' Gideon v. Wainwright2 and Argersinger v. Hamlin3 have had tremendous impact on the operation of the state criminal courts. These decisions have forced jurisdictions to broaden the right to counsel during adjudication and to establish some systematic organization for providing representation for indigent defendants. Other Supreme Court rulings have extended the right to counsel for indigents in ar…
The market for street crime
Citizen Demand for Exposure to Street Crime
If individuals gain utility from activities which expose them to the risk of being a victim of crime, then a higher risk of victimisation per unit of time exposed to crime should imply a lower quantity of exposure. This hypothesis leads to the distinction between the 'real' crime rate (probability of victimisation per unit of exposure time) and the 'nominal' crime rate (crimes per capita). Empirical evidence is presented which indicates that some…
Victimization Rates, Safety and Fear of Crime
A model is postulated of how victimization rates, safety and fear of crime interrelate. Certain population groups and cities show higher levels of fear of crime but lower measured victimization rates. According to the model this can happen because certain groups that do have higher “real” risks of victimization expose themselves less to crime and hence show lower measured victimization rates. The model also implies that even though victimization …
The market for street crime
Workers as Guardians of the Street
Citizen Demand for Exposure to Street Crime
If individuals gain utility from activities which expose them to the risk of being a victim of crime, then a higher risk of victimisation per unit of time exposed to crime should imply a lower quantity of exposure. This hypothesis leads to the distinction between the 'real' crime rate (probability of victimisation per unit of exposure time) and the 'nominal' crime rate (crimes per capita). Empirical evidence is presented which indicates that some…
Quality and Cost Comparisons of Private Bar Indigent Defense Systems
The Supreme Court decisions of Powell v. Alabama,' Gideon v. Wainwright2 and Argersinger v. Hamlin3 have had tremendous impact on the operation of the state criminal courts. These decisions have forced jurisdictions to broaden the right to counsel during adjudication and to establish some systematic organization for providing representation for indigent defendants. Other Supreme Court rulings have extended the right to counsel for indigents in ar…
Entrepreneurial Activities of Homeless Men
Encouraging and assisting homeless people to become self-employed provides a way for some of them to increase their incomes, and may help close the gap between the cost of housing and labor market earnings. A survey of operators of homeless shelters was conducted to determine the types of work activities that adult homeless men participate in. Self-employment was found to be a common activity for a substantial proportion of adult homeless men; an…
My relationship to the public is changing”
Marina Abramović: In Residence (2015) was a participatory public art project that relied on “facilitators” trained in the Abramović Method. As in other later works of Abramović’s performance practice, the artist’s presence is implied in the bodies of facilitators and participants. Situating In Residence in a longer history of institutional performance takes into account Abramović’s self-positioning as the charismatic undead
The Killjoy Comedian
In her 2017 show Nanette , Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby announced that she was quitting comedy. In the show, Gadsby argued that as a marginalized person – a gender-nonconforming lesbian from rural Tasmania – she was doing herself a disservice when she invited audiences to laugh at her trademark self-deprecating humour. Gadsby framed her decision to quit comedy partly as a problem of persona: her practice as a comedian was to take actual, som…
Archival contingencies
Ernest Scott (1867–1939), an early history professor at the University of Melbourne, left thirteen thousand books to the university library after his death. This article considers Scott’s books, many of which contain subject-specific newspaper clippings and annotations, as an archive in a state of institutional flux. Scott’s books and clippings give us insight into what historian of the modern research university William Clark calls ‘the material…
On Quitting
Like Hannah Gadsby, Dave Chappelle understands the art of quitting. At the end of his 2021 Netflix special The Closer, a show full of jokes about LGBTQ people, Chappelle announces that he is "done" making such jokes "until we are both sure that we are laughing together." Chappelle's performance of quitting inverts the politics and structure of Gadsby's Nanette (2017), in which she infamously quit comedy because it reinforced her marginalization a…
Expository spirits
There is a long tradition of aligning vampires with media, dating back to Dracula's defeat by humans using modern communication technologies. This article examines an earlier, more elemental vampire in J.R. Planché's 1820 stage melodrama The Vampire. Planché's play was staged during a period when the definition of media was shifting from the natural elements toward human communication technologies. Building on John Durham Peters' expanded notion …
Editor’s introduction, special issue on ‘the comic audience’
Can AI read the room
Authorship across media
Sociology (8 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Art (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Demography (4 works) · Economics (4 works) · Medicine (4 works) · Comedy (3 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (3 works) · Criminology (3 works)