Kaufman, Natalie Hevener

PERSONAL:

Education: University of Pennsylvania, B.A. (with honors), 1963; University of Virginia, Ph.D., 1966.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Government and International Studies, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of South Carolina, Columbia, former Louise Fry Scudder Professor of Political Science; Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, faculty associate.

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Philip Francis Dupont fellowship, 1963-66; Research and Productive Scholarship Grants, University of South Carolina, 1978, 1979, 1980; U.S. Department of State External Research Grant, 1979; Outstanding Campus and Community Leadership Award, University of South Carolina Professional Women on Campus, 1984; Curriculum Development Grant, Duke University/University of North Carolina Women's Resource Center, 1984; Curriculum Development Grant, Wellesley Center for Research on Women, 1984; National Endowment for the Humanities, Masterworks Grant, 1990, for "Origins of the Constitution: Historical and Literary Interpretation"; Mortarboard Teaching Award, 1995; Venture Fund grant, 1996; Edgar Allan Poe Award for best biographical work, Mystery Writers of America, 1997, for "G" Is for Grafton: The World of Kinsey Millhone; Louise Fry Scudder Award, University of South Carolina College of Liberal Arts, 2002.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(Editor and contributor) The Dynamics of Human Rights in United States Foreign Policy, Transaction Press, 1981.

International Law and the Status of Women, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1982.

(Editor and contributor) Diplomacy in a Dangerous World: Protection for Diplomats under International Law, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1986.

Human Rights Treaties and the Senate: A History of Opposition, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1990.

(Editor, with Malfrid Flekkoy, and contributor) The Participation Rights of the Child: Rights and Responsibilities in Family and Society, Jessica Kingsley Publishers (Bristol, PA), 1997.

(With Carol McGinnis Kay) "G" Is for Grafton: The World of Kinsey Millhone, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 1997, revised and updated edition, Owl Books/Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2000.

(Editor, with Arlene Bowers Andrews, and contributor) Implementing the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Standard of Living Adequate for Development, foreword by Gary B. Melton, Praeger (Westport, CT), 1999.

(With others) Measuring and Monitoring Children's Well-Being, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers (New York, NY), 2001.

(Editor, with Irene Rizzini, and contributor) Globalization and Children: Exploring Potentials for Enhancing Opportunities in the Lives of Children and Youth, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor to books, including Great Women Mystery Writers, Greenwood Press, 1994; Women and Human Rights: An Agenda for Change, Routledge, 1995; Women's Studies Encyclopedia, 2nd edition, Greenwood Press, 1997; and Women and International Human Rights Law, Transnational Press, 2001. Contributor to journals, including Middle East Journal, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, International Journal of Women's Studies, Human Rights Quarterly, World Affairs, Clues: A Journal of Detection, and Children's Legal Rights Journal. Member of editorial board, Childhood Journal, 2003—, and Clues: A Journal of Detection.

ADAPTATIONS:

"G" Is for Grafton: The World of Kinsey Millhone was adapted as an audiobook.

SIDELIGHTS:

Natalie Hevener Kaufman has written and edited widely on human, children's, and women's rights issues, as well as on international law and treaties. In her 1990 title, Human Rights Treaties and the Senate: A History of Opposition, she analyzes the U.S. Senate's opposition to such treaties through several decades of debate. It was not until 1992, she notes, that the United States participated in the Torture Convention, the Genocide Convention, the Supplementary Slavery Convention, the Convention on the Political Rights of Women, and the International Labor Organization Convention on Forced Labor. As Daniel L. Lowery remarked in a review for the Human Rights Quarterly: "The US resistance to the treaties is on its face baffling." Partly this was due, as Kaufman points out in her book, to fear of compromising domestic law and constitutional guarantees of sovereignty. Lowery observed: "Kaufman traces the origin of the campaign against ratification of the human rights treaties to a small committee of influential members of the American Bar Association," whose primary concern was maintaining U.S. sovereignty and also states' rights. Thus, throughout the Cold War the United States both engineered human rights treaties and boycotted their implementation. Lowery further commented: "In assessing the fundamental agenda of the human rights treaty opposition, Kaufman's book provides an especially useful and detailed analysis of the variety of arguments presented by ratification opponents in the Senate over the years."

As editor with Arlene Bowers Andrews, Kaufman deals with children's rights in Implementing the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Standard of Living Adequate for Development. Reviewing this book in Adolescence, a contributor reported that the "editors share a vision of childhood wherein the child is accorded dignity, and opportunities exist to promote advancement of human potential."

Apart from her work on human rights issues, Kaufman is also well known for her 1997 award-winning work on mystery fiction, written with Carol McGinnis Kay: "G" Is for Grafton: The World of Kinsey Millhone. Here the authors provide a "comprehensive compendium of facts and background" on the fictional private investigator created by author Sue Grafton, according to Emily Melton in Booklist. Using extensive interviews with Grafton, Kaufman and Kay develop a fictionalized biography of Millhone, detailing everything from her early life and education to her physical appearance and most significant cases. Also included is a wide-ranging bibliography on Grafton's works. For Sharon Schulz-Elsing, writing on Curled Up with a Good Book, "G" Is for Grafton "opens a window onto Sue Grafton's private vistas, revealing fascinating tidbits about the creative processes employed by one of today's most bankable genre writers." A Writers Write.com reviewer recommended Kaufman's book as "a must-have for fans of the series and for aspiring novelists who need to learn how to create a fascinating, compelling protagonist."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Adolescence, summer, 1999, review of Implementing the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Standard of Living Adequate for Development, p. 443.

Booklist, November 1, 1997, Emily Melton, review of "G" Is for Grafton: The World of Kinsey Millhone, p. 448.

Entertainment Weekly, November 21, 1997, Megan Harlan, review of "G" Is for Grafton, p. 126.

Human Rights Quarterly, Daniel L. Lowery, review of Human Rights Treaties and the Senate: A History of Opposition, pp. 197-204.

Library Journal, December, 1997, Denise Johnson, review of "G" Is for Grafton, p. 106.

ONLINE

Curled Up with a Good Book,http://www.curledup.com/ (March 12, 2007), Sharon Schulz-Elsing, review of "G" Is for Grafton.

Department of Government and International Studies, University of South Carolina Web site,http://www.cas.sc.edu/ (March 12, 2007), author's curriculum vitae.

WritersWrite.com,http://www.writerswrite.com/ (March 12, 2007), review of "G" Is for Grafton.