After completing his studies, Twine spent a decade at Lancaster University, where he was based within the ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics.[1] While at Lancaster, he published Animals as Biotechnology: Ethics, Sustainability and Critical Animal Studies as part of the Earthscan Science in Society Series.[6] This was "the first book fully dedicated to" critical animal studies.[2] It offered, in the words of one reviewer, "an impressive analysis of the biotech and meat industries from an unapologetically pro-animal perspective".[7]
After finishing at Lancaster, Twine worked briefly at the University of Glasgow[8] and the UCL Institute of Education.[1] He published the collectionThe Rise of Critical Animal Studies: From the Margins to the Centre, co-edited with Nik Taylor, with Routledge in 2014.[9] The same year, he joined Edge Hill University.[10] He also published a paper in Societies[11] in which he drew upon Sara Ahmed's notion of a feminist killjoy, coining the idea of a "vegan killjoy".[12] Twine argues that, in a culture in which meat-eating is the norm, a vegan can, by their mere presence, challenge anthropocentric attitudes and practices, affecting the enjoyment that others have in eating animal products.[11] This, Twine claims, can serve as "critical deconstructive work".[11] The idea of the vegan killjoy has been widely deployed in vegan studies and related fields.[12]
As of 2024[update], Twine is a reader in sociology in the Department of History, Geography & Social Sciences at Edge Hill[4] and co-director of the university's Centre for Human-Animal Studies.[3] His book The Climate Crisis and Other Animals, published by Sydney University Press, was released in 2024.[3]
Taylor, Nik, and Richard Twine, eds. (2014). The Rise of Critical Animal Studies: From the Margins to the Centre. London: Routledge.
Twine, Richard (2017). "Materially Constituting a Sustainable Food Transition: The Case of Vegan Eating Practice". Sociology 52 (1): 166-81. doi:10.1177/0038038517726647.
Twine, Richard (2024). The Climate Crisis and Other Animals. Sydney: Sydney University Press.
^Taylor, Nik; Twine, Richard, eds. (2014). "Contributors". The Rise of Critical Animal Studies: From the Margins to the Centre. Routledge. pp. xvi–xix.
Gillespie, Kathryn (2018). "The loneliness and madness of witnessing: Reflections from a vegan feminist killjoy". In Gruen, Lori; Probyn-Rapsey, Fiona (eds.). Animaladies: Gender, Animals, and Madness(PDF). Bloomsbury. pp. 77–85.
