Charlene Spretnak

Charlene Spretnak is the author of eight books, several of which have proposed an eco-social analysis and vision in the areas of social criticism (including feminism), cultural history, religion, and spirituality. Since the mid-1980s her books have examined the multiple crises of modernity and have furthered the corrective efforts that are arising. Her book Green Politics (1984) was a major catalyst for the formation of the U.S. Green Party movement, which she cofounded. In 2021, Mexico City-based publisher Lunaria Ediciones published a Spanish translation of Green Politics: The Spiritual Dimension  under the title La promesa de una política Verde: Más allá del humanismo, el neoliberalismo y el patriarcado.

Spretnak was inducted into the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame in 1989 by Gov. Richard F. Celeste in recognition of her writings on spirituality and social justice. In 2006 she was named by the British government’s Environment Department as one of the “100 Eco-Heroes of All Time” for her writings on ecology, politics, and spirituality. In 2012 she received the Demeter Award for lifetime achievement as “one of the premier visionary feminist thinkers of our time” from the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology. From early 2012 through September 2014 she co-hosted “All Together Now,” a weekly radio program on the Progressive Radio Network.

Spretnak is a professor emerita in the philosophy and religion department at California Institute of Integral Studies, in San Francisco. Her most recent book is The Spiritual Dynamic in Modern Art (2014). She lives in California.