Karen Davis

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for others with the same name see Karen Davis (disambiguation).

Karen Davis is the founder and President of United Poultry Concerns, Inc. She has a PhD in English from the University of Maryland-College Park where she taught for 12 years in the English Department. Her articles have appeared in The Faculty Voice (University of Maryland), Journal of English and Germanic Philology, English Language Notes, Teaching English in the Two-Year College, Between the Species: A Journal of Ethics, and many other publications. She has published in the New York Times, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Columbus Dispatch, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Harper’s Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Nation, Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times, "Dear Abby," Egg Industry, Feedstuffs, and has appeared on the Howard Stern Show.

Karen has essays in Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations (Duke UP, 1995), Terrorists or Freedom Fighters: Reflections on the Liberation of Animals (Lantern Books, 2004), and Animal Liberation Philosophy and Policy Studies Journal Vol. 2, No. 2 (Center on Animal Liberation Affairs, 2005).

At the University of Maryland Karen founded the Animal Rights Coalition in 1989, and she pioneered a course on the role of animals in the Western philosophic and literary tradition in the University Honors Program. Karen is a featured speaker at the annual National Animal Rights conventions in Washington, DC and Los Angeles. On July 2, 2002, Karen was inducted into the U.S. Animal Rights Hall of Fame "for outstanding contributions to animal liberation."

On November 14, 1999, Karen Davis was profiled in "For the Birds," in The Washington Post, winner of the 1999 Ark Trust Genesis Award for Outstanding Newspaper Feature for 1999. On November 14, 2000, Karen and United Poultry Concerns were featured on the CBC Primetime TV show Witness, in "Chickens are People Too," produced by the Emmy winning filmmaker, John Kastner. In May 2002, Karen was a featured speaker at the Yale University Chicken Conference (May 17-19). The October 2002 issue of Egg Industry magazine featured Karen Davis and UPC in a special interview.

In 1990, Karen founded United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl and includes a sanctuary. Karen is the author of A Home for Henny; Instead of Chicken, Instead of Turkey: A Poultryless ‘Poultry’ Potpourri; Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry; and More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality (Lantern Books 2001). Karen's latest book is The Holocaust and the Henmaid's Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities (Lantern Books 2005).