Barbara J. King (born 18 August 1956) is professor emerita, retired from the Department of Anthropology at the College of William & Mary where she taught from 1988 to 2015, and was chair of the department of Anthropology.[1]
Since 2011, King has written weekly for the National Public Radio blog Cosmos and Culture,[2] which explores humans' relationships to each other, their environment, and the planet. Specifically, King focused often on the "inner lives" of intelligent animals like primates, the octopus, squid, pigs, and dolphins, arguing that humanity should consider how best to communicate and accommodate these species' lives without anthropomorphization or exploitation.
King also utilized the blog format to relate personal stories for a general audience, such as her treatment for uterine cancer (2013)[3] and her retirement from active teaching (2015).[4]
King is a pescatarian in her personal life, stating that she supplements her "almost-vegetarian" diet with occasional fish.[7][8][9] She has also described herself as a "reducetarian".[10]
The Information Continuum: Evolution of Social Information Transfer in Monkeys, Apes, and Hominids. School of American Research Press, 1994. ISBN978-0933452398
^King, Barbara J. (2017). Personalities on the Plate: The Lives and Minds of Animals We Eat. University of Chicago Press. p. 79. ISBN978-0-226-19518-6 "I myself (owing to some long-term health challenges) feel healthiest when I supplement my almost-vegetarian diet with an occasional fish."
^"We Are All Part-Time Vegans Now". WBUR News. Retrieved 26 December 2019. "My own way of eating is conventionally described as pescatarian: I eat fish, but not other meats. I don't count as a vegetarian because of the fish, and because I eat cheese, yogurt and other dairy products."