Kaufman-Osborn, Timothy V. 1953-

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KAUFMAN-OSBORN, Timothy V. 1953-

PERSONAL: Born February 7, 1953, in Camden, NJ; son of Norman and Marjorie (Phipps) Osborn; married, wife's name Sharon; children: Jacob, Tobin. Education: Oberlin College, B.A., 1976; University of Wisconsin, Madison, M.A., 1977; Princeton University, M.A., 1980, Ph.D., 1982.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Department of Politics, Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA 99362. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER: Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA, assistant professor, 1982-85, associate professor, 1985-92, professor, 1992-96, Baker Ferguson Professor of Politics and Leadership, 1996—; Princeton University, Department of Politics, Princeton, NJ, visiting research fellow, 1985-86; Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan, visiting scholar, 1990.

MEMBER: American Political Science Association, Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, Society for Philosophy and Technology, Western Political Science Association, Conference for the Study of Political Thought, American Civil Liberties Union of Washington (president, 2002—), Pacific Northwest Political Science Association, Groupe d'Études Durkheimiennes, Charles S. Peirce Society.

AWARDS, HONORS: Summer stipend, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1983; John Dewey Research Fund grant, 1985; Earhart fellowship research grant, 1985-86; Paul Farrett fellowship for excellence in undergraduate teaching, 1985-92; Faculty Acheivment Award, Burlington Northern Foundation, 1989; Betty Nesvold Women and Politics Award for best paper on women and politics, 1992; Pi Sigma Alpha Award for best paper, Western Political Science Association, 1995; Robert Fluno Award for distinguished teaching in the social sciences, 1999.

WRITINGS:

Politics/Sense/Experience: A Pragmatic Inquiry into the Promise of Democracy, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1991.

Creatures of Prometheus: Gender and the Politics of Technology, Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, MD), 1997.

From Noose to Needle: Capital Punishment and the Late Liberal State, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 2002.

Also contributor of essays to collections, including John Dewey: Critical Assessments, Volume 2, edited by J. E. Tiles, Routledge (New York, NY), 1992; Critical Perspectives on Democracy, edited by Lyman Legters, John Burke, and Arthur DiQuattro, Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, MD), 1994; Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Volume 20, edited by Austin Sarat and Patricia Weick, JAI Press (Stamford, CT), 2000; and Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Volume 22, edited by Austin Sarat and Patricia Weick, JAI Press (Stamford, CT), 2001.

Contributor to professional journals, including Yale Law Journal, PS: Political Science and Politics, Liberal Education, Signs, Political Theory, Polity, Theory and Society, Hypatia, Willamette Journal of the Liberal Arts, American Journal of Political Science, and Journal of Politics.

SIDELIGHTS: Political scientist Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn has published works investigating major issues facing American society today. In From Noose to Needle: Capital Punishment and the Late Liberal State, for instance, the author explores the quandary that capital punishment places on modern Western governments. How can a government that claims to respect the natural rights of its citizens—including the rights of life and liberty—also claim the exclusive right to end the lives of certain citizens? In addition, how can a state claim to honor universal human rights by avoiding torture and still execute prisoners using hanging (which was used in the state of Washington as recently as 1993) and the electric chair (which leaves heat scars on the corpses of prisoners)?

Kaufman-Osborn suggests that the relatively recent introduction of execution by lethal injection tries to ameliorate the issue by promoting a "humane" method of execution, but succeeds only in alienating both the proponents of capital punishment (who see executions as a form of vengeance) and the opponents of capital punishment (who see any form of execution as a violation of universal human rights). In the end, the author concludes, capital punishment has at least as much to do with a government's need to feel that it is in control of society as it does with justice and retribution. Jennifer L. Culbert, writing in Political Theory, stated that "Kaufman-Osborn's subtle analysis of capital punishment does not fit into any of the traditional categories of death penalty scholarship." As the critic explained, Kaufman-Osborn does not oppose the death penalty because it is immoral, but because "[stripping] the state of its authority to impose and inflict death sentences 'is to move one step closer to a politics we can live with.'"

In Creatures of Prometheus: Gender and the Politics of Technology, Kaufman-Osborn examines "the relationships between human identity and the things we make," according to American Political Science Review contributor Ruth Abbey. The things that surround us in our everyday life define us and our place in society—including our gender, our language, and our technological tools. "Kaufman-Osborn," declared Abbey, "portrays gender as an artifact, as something produced partly through the different things that men and women typically make and the different tools used in these processes." In his book Kaufman-Osborn states that technology accelerates this process and blurs the distinction between the makers of artifacts and the artifacts themselves. Hypatia contributor Jodi Dean noted that "it's crucial to Kaufman-Osborne's argument that artifacts are not simply signs of gender but makers of it." These artifacts are so commonplace to our way of life that we accept them—and the gender roles defined by them—without thinking. Kaufman-Osborn "strives to remind us," stated Abbey, "how influential the things we routinely take for granted are; we usually fail to notice their significance until they break down or confound our expectations in some way."