Abstract

This introduction outlines the social, environmental, and intellectual contexts shaping the emergence of vegan theory. It establishes an understanding of veganism’s messy, contradictory aspects, which runs counter to contemporary conceptualizations of it as a faddish diet or punitive set of proscriptions. Quinn and Westwood argue that veganism is situated between two opposing, but necessary poles: utopianism and insufficiency, aligned respectively with the work of Carol J. Adams and Jacques Derrida. The importance of these coordinates derives from their opposition: veganism as a confluence of utopian impulses, and the acknowledgement of their inevitable insufficiency. This introduction shows how thinking through veganism—as a heuristic lens and topic in its own right—opens out onto a wide variety of issues and questions explored in the following essays.