Chris Dent
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 4239501 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Chris Dent |
| PRENOMES | Chris |
| SOBRENOME | Dent |
| ASSINATURA | DENT C |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Murdoch University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1801-713X |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 25 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 11 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 25 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1992 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 2 |
To Die for the Environment
Governmentality and the Common Law
The nineteenth century saw significant changes in how the law articulated the assessment of those who came before the courts. The judges made greater, and more refined, use of the concept of the mind as a way to refer to the internal lives of the parties. Using a Foucauldian lens, judgments from the sub-disciplines of criminal, succession and contract law will be assessed. Two specific aspects will be considered—the manner in which the law discip…
To Die, To Sleep No More
This is a piece of speculative legal research. A short narrative is provided, one that is set in the future, and the law embedded within the tale is subject to critique. The story is of an AI that is engaging with the soul of a dead man in deep space. The analysis focuses on how the law, both in the future and in 2026, conceives of the mind and its decision-making. The legal frameworks to be considered are those of agency and consent (as understo…
Legal Academics as the Civic Priests of the Trickster Law
The trickster is a mythic figure that features in cultures from around the world. While better-known examples of the figures are evident in non-Western cultures, the argument here is that many features of the law match those of the trickster – particularly those of Hermes. The law is an immortal mortal, an enchanter and disenchanter, and a shapeshifting bricoleur. The law, then is shown to have a liminal role, interceding between “Justice” and hu…
Cope
The primary purpose of public mental health is to promote wellbeing. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) have found that it is crucial to engage community to improve wellbeing and to support persons at times of stress. The United States Surgeon General has reported on significant debilitation caused by an epidemic of loneliness, contributed to by the loss of social connect…
Jurors in Criminal Trials
Road deaths as problematisation
Law in a ‘Simulated’ Universe
There are challenges to teaching law and legal theory to law students in the new millennium. It is a digital world, and the assumptions and foundations of the law do not mesh well with the shifts in identities and communities that are now in evidence. The idea of our universe being a simulation can be used as a metaphor to engage with digital natives about the fundamental uncertainty in the relationship between the law and the individual. The law…
“Narrative Life” in Film and the Role of Screenwriting Practices
Research Article| October 01 2021 “Narrative Life” in Film and the Role of Screenwriting Practices Chris Dent Chris Dent CHRIS DENT is a scholar investigating the boundary of law and social theory, producing legal research focused on both creativity (around either the regulation of speech or intellectual property) and social theory, specifically the work of Michel Foucault. Dent has taught in the area of media law, and prior to his legal studies,…
Patents over military equipment
Patents for invention have a history that goes back centuries in England. As a result, they can be used to interrogate changes in the practices of governance that occurred over that time (and further back). Using the ideas of Michel Foucault, that described the conditions of possibility for ‘governmentality’, an analysis of patents over military equipment allows a reconception of Foucault’s modes of governance. Military patents facilitate the goa…
Identity, Technology and their Confluence
The digital age has posed significant challenges for the governance of society. These challenges stem, in part, from the fact that many of the practices of governance arose in the pre-digital world. Foucault’s notion of ‘governmentality’ is a framework that can take account of the different sets of practices of governance. Comparing current practices with those highlighted by Miller and Rose’s ‘three families’ of governmentality suggests that twe…
Nineteenth-Century Law, Literature and Opium
It is not news to suggest that the law treated drugs like opium differently in the nineteenth century compared to today. These days, opium falls within the category of psychoactive drugs, for the purposes of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 . This is because it ‘produces a psychoactive effect in a person ... by stimulating or depressing the person’s central nervous system ... [thereby] affect[ing] the person’s mental functioning or emotional …
Oligopolist Speech and the Public Interest in Pharmaceutical Patent Law Reform
Understandings of the public interest underpin many law reform processes. The public interest is not a fully definable term and so reform bodies have to engage with a range of articulations of that interest. The negotiation of the different articulations, however, has not been explored empirically before. This article reports on a study of the claims to the public interest in a public Australian inquiry into potential abuses of the patent system …
Religion and the Early Modern Patent System, 1560–1660
The early modern patent system existed at a time when religious belief was of significantly more importance than it is now. The impact of the Protestant nature of England, and that of Puritan thought (understood broadly), on the patents of the time is an underexplored aspect of their history. There are four ways in which the religion can be linked to the operation, and limitation of patents under Elizabeth, and the Stuart kings. First, a prime mo…
Assessing the Potential Impact of Grid-Scale Variable Renewable Energy on the Reliability of Electricity Supply in Kenya
Securing a sufficient supply of reliable and affordable electricity is a major challenge for countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), due to low current access levels, and rapid population and economic growth. This article will review application and technical modelling issues associated with generation adequacy assessment (i.e. assessing the risk of available generation being less than demand) in the context of SSA countries with significant capac…
The ‘Reasonable Man’, his Nineteenth‐century ‘Siblings’, and their Legacy
The reasonable man is the best known, but not the only, legal construct to be born into the nineteenth‐century common law. This article introduces the man's siblings – including those from the areas of trust law, criminal law, contract law, and intellectual property law (both patents and trademarks). The fact that some of these ‘men’ changed the law is not controversial; this research further highlights that while several of these came to life in…
Relationships Between Laws, Norms and Practices
The road rules are the only area of 'law' about which almost every citizen is given explicit instruction, and with which most citizens engage on a daily basis – as a driver, a cyclist or a pedestrian. This makes these rules the ideal site for an exploration of the interaction between the law (or, more properly, regulations), the norms that are linked to the law and the practices adopted by road users that relate to those norms. This exploration w…
Gray, meticulous and patently documentary’
Patents are seen as a key part of the modern economy and operate as a mode of regulation of technology and innovation. The histories of the system, to date, have not explored the role that patents have in the governance of our society. This article suggests that the historical methods of Michel Foucault are broad enough to undertake this task. The article, then, explores both the archaeological and the genealogical methods in order to assess the …
Copyright, Governmentality and Problematisation
The Copyright Act covers a large range of subject-matters: it includes civil and criminal actions for infringement and appears to envisage a wide range of potential infringers – from a child downloading music to international criminal cartels engaging in large-scale piracy of movies. The Act's breadth suggests that an appropriate framework for its analysis is Foucault's governmentality. Such an approach is not straightforward. The Copyright Act, …
Not all practices are equal
Foucault's ideas surrounding the notion of governmentality are built upon the intersection of multiple discourses and discursive practices – a “complex topography of rule”. The notion of disciplinarity is well accepted in the literature; however, there are few attempts to conceive how practices, from a range of discourses, relate to each other. Everyday observations indicate that not all learnt practices are equally important to a given subject. …
Journalists are the confessors of the public', says one Foucaultian
The article combines Foucault's ideas of discursive formations, practices and subjects with qualitative data gained from interviews with working Australian journalists, editors and broadcast producers. This combination of the theoretical and the empirical allows for the exploration of journalism as a discursive formation rather than as simply a set of practices internalized by journalists. Through the examination of the words of the respondents, …
Stare Decisis, Repetition and Understanding Common Law
The works of Michel Foucault have not, so far, been employed so as to enable an adequate understanding of the functioning of the law. This article begins to remedy this situation. Past uses of Foucault's work have failed to provide a satisfactory account of the relationship between the juridical and the disciplinary aspects of 'the law' in general. The application of his ideas to the practice of the common law offers a way forward. In this articl…
The Privileged Few’ and the Classification of Henwood v Harrison
This article considers the treatment of one nineteenth century English defamation decision, Henwood v Harrison, in light of Michel Foucault’s understanding of the construction of discourses. In particular, the processes of classification applied to the decision are examined. That is, the manner in which later barristers, judges, commentators and digest compilers categorised Henwood v Harrison is argued to be an example of an internal discursive c…
Relation between access to tobacco and adolescent smoking
There appears to be a relatively small positive linear relation between the community rate of sales to minors and 11th grade youth smoking prevalence in those communities. Youth adjust their tobacco sources depending on the level of commercial availability
The validity of self-reported condom use
The validity of self-reported condom use. D A Cohen, and C Dent Joseph A. Catania, M. Margaret Dolcini, and Thomas J. Coates CopyRight https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.82.11.1563 Published Online: October 07, 2011
Journalists are the confessors of the public', says one Foucaultian
The article combines Foucault's ideas of discursive formations, practices and subjects with qualitative data gained from interviews with working Australian journalists, editors and broadcast producers. This combination of the theoretical and the empirical allows for the exploration of journalism as a discursive formation rather than as simply a set of practices internalized by journalists. Through the examination of the words of the respondents, …
The validity of self-reported condom use
The validity of self-reported condom use. D A Cohen, and C Dent Joseph A. Catania, M. Margaret Dolcini, and Thomas J. Coates CopyRight https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.82.11.1563 Published Online: October 07, 2011
The ‘Reasonable Man’, his Nineteenth‐century ‘Siblings’, and their Legacy
The reasonable man is the best known, but not the only, legal construct to be born into the nineteenth‐century common law. This article introduces the man's siblings – including those from the areas of trust law, criminal law, contract law, and intellectual property law (both patents and trademarks). The fact that some of these ‘men’ changed the law is not controversial; this research further highlights that while several of these came to life in…
The validity of self-reported condom use
The validity of self-reported condom use. D A Cohen, and C Dent Joseph A. Catania, M. Margaret Dolcini, and Thomas J. Coates CopyRight https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.82.11.1563 Published Online: October 07, 2011
Relation between access to tobacco and adolescent smoking
There appears to be a relatively small positive linear relation between the community rate of sales to minors and 11th grade youth smoking prevalence in those communities. Youth adjust their tobacco sources depending on the level of commercial availability
The Privileged Few’ and the Classification of Henwood v Harrison
This article considers the treatment of one nineteenth century English defamation decision, Henwood v Harrison, in light of Michel Foucault’s understanding of the construction of discourses. In particular, the processes of classification applied to the decision are examined. That is, the manner in which later barristers, judges, commentators and digest compilers categorised Henwood v Harrison is argued to be an example of an internal discursive c…
Stare Decisis, Repetition and Understanding Common Law
The works of Michel Foucault have not, so far, been employed so as to enable an adequate understanding of the functioning of the law. This article begins to remedy this situation. Past uses of Foucault's work have failed to provide a satisfactory account of the relationship between the juridical and the disciplinary aspects of 'the law' in general. The application of his ideas to the practice of the common law offers a way forward. In this articl…
Journalists are the confessors of the public', says one Foucaultian
The article combines Foucault's ideas of discursive formations, practices and subjects with qualitative data gained from interviews with working Australian journalists, editors and broadcast producers. This combination of the theoretical and the empirical allows for the exploration of journalism as a discursive formation rather than as simply a set of practices internalized by journalists. Through the examination of the words of the respondents, …
Copyright, Governmentality and Problematisation
The Copyright Act covers a large range of subject-matters: it includes civil and criminal actions for infringement and appears to envisage a wide range of potential infringers – from a child downloading music to international criminal cartels engaging in large-scale piracy of movies. The Act's breadth suggests that an appropriate framework for its analysis is Foucault's governmentality. Such an approach is not straightforward. The Copyright Act, …
Not all practices are equal
Foucault's ideas surrounding the notion of governmentality are built upon the intersection of multiple discourses and discursive practices – a “complex topography of rule”. The notion of disciplinarity is well accepted in the literature; however, there are few attempts to conceive how practices, from a range of discourses, relate to each other. Everyday observations indicate that not all learnt practices are equally important to a given subject. …
Gray, meticulous and patently documentary’
Patents are seen as a key part of the modern economy and operate as a mode of regulation of technology and innovation. The histories of the system, to date, have not explored the role that patents have in the governance of our society. This article suggests that the historical methods of Michel Foucault are broad enough to undertake this task. The article, then, explores both the archaeological and the genealogical methods in order to assess the …
Relationships Between Laws, Norms and Practices
The road rules are the only area of 'law' about which almost every citizen is given explicit instruction, and with which most citizens engage on a daily basis – as a driver, a cyclist or a pedestrian. This makes these rules the ideal site for an exploration of the interaction between the law (or, more properly, regulations), the norms that are linked to the law and the practices adopted by road users that relate to those norms. This exploration w…
Religion and the Early Modern Patent System, 1560–1660
The early modern patent system existed at a time when religious belief was of significantly more importance than it is now. The impact of the Protestant nature of England, and that of Puritan thought (understood broadly), on the patents of the time is an underexplored aspect of their history. There are four ways in which the religion can be linked to the operation, and limitation of patents under Elizabeth, and the Stuart kings. First, a prime mo…
Assessing the Potential Impact of Grid-Scale Variable Renewable Energy on the Reliability of Electricity Supply in Kenya
Securing a sufficient supply of reliable and affordable electricity is a major challenge for countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), due to low current access levels, and rapid population and economic growth. This article will review application and technical modelling issues associated with generation adequacy assessment (i.e. assessing the risk of available generation being less than demand) in the context of SSA countries with significant capac…
The ‘Reasonable Man’, his Nineteenth‐century ‘Siblings’, and their Legacy
The reasonable man is the best known, but not the only, legal construct to be born into the nineteenth‐century common law. This article introduces the man's siblings – including those from the areas of trust law, criminal law, contract law, and intellectual property law (both patents and trademarks). The fact that some of these ‘men’ changed the law is not controversial; this research further highlights that while several of these came to life in…
Oligopolist Speech and the Public Interest in Pharmaceutical Patent Law Reform
Understandings of the public interest underpin many law reform processes. The public interest is not a fully definable term and so reform bodies have to engage with a range of articulations of that interest. The negotiation of the different articulations, however, has not been explored empirically before. This article reports on a study of the claims to the public interest in a public Australian inquiry into potential abuses of the patent system …
Nineteenth-Century Law, Literature and Opium
It is not news to suggest that the law treated drugs like opium differently in the nineteenth century compared to today. These days, opium falls within the category of psychoactive drugs, for the purposes of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 . This is because it ‘produces a psychoactive effect in a person ... by stimulating or depressing the person’s central nervous system ... [thereby] affect[ing] the person’s mental functioning or emotional …
Identity, Technology and their Confluence
The digital age has posed significant challenges for the governance of society. These challenges stem, in part, from the fact that many of the practices of governance arose in the pre-digital world. Foucault’s notion of ‘governmentality’ is a framework that can take account of the different sets of practices of governance. Comparing current practices with those highlighted by Miller and Rose’s ‘three families’ of governmentality suggests that twe…
“Narrative Life” in Film and the Role of Screenwriting Practices
Research Article| October 01 2021 “Narrative Life” in Film and the Role of Screenwriting Practices Chris Dent Chris Dent CHRIS DENT is a scholar investigating the boundary of law and social theory, producing legal research focused on both creativity (around either the regulation of speech or intellectual property) and social theory, specifically the work of Michel Foucault. Dent has taught in the area of media law, and prior to his legal studies,…
Patents over military equipment
Patents for invention have a history that goes back centuries in England. As a result, they can be used to interrogate changes in the practices of governance that occurred over that time (and further back). Using the ideas of Michel Foucault, that described the conditions of possibility for ‘governmentality’, an analysis of patents over military equipment allows a reconception of Foucault’s modes of governance. Military patents facilitate the goa…
Law in a ‘Simulated’ Universe
There are challenges to teaching law and legal theory to law students in the new millennium. It is a digital world, and the assumptions and foundations of the law do not mesh well with the shifts in identities and communities that are now in evidence. The idea of our universe being a simulation can be used as a metaphor to engage with digital natives about the fundamental uncertainty in the relationship between the law and the individual. The law…
Road deaths as problematisation
Cope
The primary purpose of public mental health is to promote wellbeing. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) have found that it is crucial to engage community to improve wellbeing and to support persons at times of stress. The United States Surgeon General has reported on significant debilitation caused by an epidemic of loneliness, contributed to by the loss of social connect…
Jurors in Criminal Trials
To Die for the Environment
Governmentality and the Common Law
The nineteenth century saw significant changes in how the law articulated the assessment of those who came before the courts. The judges made greater, and more refined, use of the concept of the mind as a way to refer to the internal lives of the parties. Using a Foucauldian lens, judgments from the sub-disciplines of criminal, succession and contract law will be assessed. Two specific aspects will be considered—the manner in which the law discip…
To Die, To Sleep No More
This is a piece of speculative legal research. A short narrative is provided, one that is set in the future, and the law embedded within the tale is subject to critique. The story is of an AI that is engaging with the soul of a dead man in deep space. The analysis focuses on how the law, both in the future and in 2026, conceives of the mind and its decision-making. The legal frameworks to be considered are those of agency and consent (as understo…
Legal Academics as the Civic Priests of the Trickster Law
The trickster is a mythic figure that features in cultures from around the world. While better-known examples of the figures are evident in non-Western cultures, the argument here is that many features of the law match those of the trickster – particularly those of Hermes. The law is an immortal mortal, an enchanter and disenchanter, and a shapeshifting bricoleur. The law, then is shown to have a liminal role, interceding between “Justice” and hu…
Political science (17 obras) · Sociology (17 obras) · Law (15 obras) · Law (11 obras) · Computer Science (7 obras) · Politics (7 obras) · Economics (6 obras) · Foucault, Power, and Ethics (6 obras) · Governmentality (6 obras) · Law in Society and Culture (6 obras)