Samantha King

Professor of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University. An interdisciplinary scholar focused on the embodied dimensions of consumer culture, her curiosity about animal studies was prompted by the growing number of graduate students with an interest in extending theories of “the body” beyond the human. Noticing that conversations with these students frequently returned to the subject of food, together they began crafting a collaborative project on eating animals. With Elaine Power, Scott Carey, Isabel Macquarrie, and Victoria Millious, that interest eventually evolved into a book, Messy Eating: Conversations on Animals as Food (Fordham University Press, 2019). Messy Eating features interviews with fifteen scholars about how they integrate theory and practice in approaching if and how to eat animals. A related monograph, Protein: Economies and Ecologies of a Nutritional Superstar (with Gavin Weedon) explores how and with what effects protein has emerged as the most important nutrient. We contend that protein’s status as a nutritional superstar has little to do with most people’s actual dietary needs, proposing instead is a conceptualization of protein as a socio-natural agent caught up in complex relations of power. The book will be published by Duke University Press in 2025.