Barbara J. King
is a contributor to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos & Culture. She is a Chancellor Professor of Anthropology at the College of William and Mary. With a long-standing research interest in primate behavior and human evolution, King has studied baboon foraging in Kenya and gorilla and bonobo communication at captive facilities in the United States.
Recently, she has taken up writing about animal emotion and cognition more broadly, including in bison, farm animals, elephants and domestic pets, as well as primates.
King's most recent book is How Animals Grieve (University of Chicago Press, 2013). Her article "When Animals Mourn" in the July 2013 Scientific American has been chosen for inclusion in the 2014 anthology The Best American Science and Nature Writing. King reviews non-fiction for the Times Literary Supplement(London) and is at work on a new book about the choices we make in eating other animals. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work in 2002.
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New York Times columnist Margaret Renkl astonishes with her essays, a woven tapestry that makes one of all the world's beings that strive to live — and, in one way or another, face mortality.
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With details at once compelling and disturbing, geographer Jacob Shell describes the lives of the elephants of mountainous Myanmar and northeastern India that haul timber or transport people.
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The beauty of Robert Macfarlane's writing, and of the natural world it describes, is immense. His words also act as a warning, ensuring a recognition of human harms to the environment.
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In his new book, primate behavior researcher Frans de Waal writes that "emotions are everywhere in the animal kingdom, from fish to birds to insects and even in brainy mollusks such as the octopus."
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For many, Afghanistan does not at first conjure up images of black bears and musk deer. But that's just what Alex Dehgan found when his team went there in hope of establishing the first national park.
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Conservation scientist Lauren E. Oakes weaves her musings about humans' place in a warming world together with conservation science in a moving and effective way.
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Anthropologist Barbara J. King says Hurricane Florence should lead us to look beyond the agriculture industry's loss of "inventory" and view animals as thinking, feeling — and suffering — beings. -
Author Paige Williams brings the discussion to life by recounting the exploits of commercial fossil hunter Eric Prokopi, highlighting one find — a 24-ft.-long Tarbosaurus fossil, the book's star.
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The severity of the enormous reduction in bee numbers over the past decade is at the heart of a new book by conservation biologist Thor Hanson, whose appreciation for the pollinators shines through. -
For 6 1/2 years, Barbara J. King has written commentaries for NPR on everything from animals and anthropology to gender and higher education. Here, she offers up some of her favorite pieces.
