Charlene Spretnak

Biographical Information
"Charlene Spretnak was born in Pittsburgh and raised in Columbus, Ohio. She holds a B.A. magna cum laude, with appointment to Phi Beta Kappa, from St. Louis University, and an M.A. in English and American literature from the University of California at Berkeley. Her work is internationally recognized in various areas of social criticism (including feminism); cultural history; ecological thought (including Green politics and ecological philosophy); and spirituality and religion.

"Her eco-social, relational worldview has its roots in eleven summers she spent in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains (the Hocking Hills of southeastern Ohio) at a girls' summer camp. Her love of cultural and intellectual history was acquired through four years at a Jesuit university, where she studied with Walter J. Ong and other inspiring scholars. Her felt responsibility to help ease the suffering of the world was instilled by her parents...

"Ms. Spretnak is author of Green Politics: The Global Promise (with Fritjof Capra; 1984), which was a major catalyst for the Green Party movement in the United States and was voted the best political book of l984 by the readers of New Options. She also wrote The Spiritual Dimension of Green Politics (l986), which was the annual lecture to the E. F. Schumacher Society of America in 1984. In August 1984, she co-founded the Green Party movement in this country...

"Ms. Spretnak's eighth book, Relational Reality: New Discoveries of Interrelatedness That Are Transforming the Modern World was published in 2011... In March 1989 Charlene Spretnak was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame by Gov. Richard F. Celeste in recognition of her writings on spirituality and social justice. She lectures in the United States and Europe. She was Scholar-in-Residence at Schumacher College, in England, in 1992, 1997, and 2003. In 2006 Charlene Spretnak was named by the British government's Environment Department as one of the "100 Eco-Heroes of All Time."

"Ms. Spretnak is a professor in the philosophy and religion program at California Institute of Integral Studies, a graduate institute in San Francisco. She is currently working on a book about the spiritual dimensions of modern and contemporary art from the 1800 to the present."

She hosts a radio show on Progressive Radio Network.