Chaia Heller

Chaia Heller is a writer, activist, and artist who has been teaching political, feminist, and queer theory at the Institute for Social Ecology for four decades, in addition to anthropology and gender studies at Mount Holyoke College. She has been active in a range of movements including the ecofeminist movement, reproductive justice movements, the Left Greens, the global justice movement, Occupy, and the fight for disability/neurodiversity justice. Her intellectual and creative writing has been published in numerous journals and anthologies. She is the author of two books, The Ecology of Everyday Life: Rethinking the Desire for Nature (Black Rose Books) and Food, Farms, and Solidarity: French Farmers Challenge Industrial Agriculture and Genetically Modified Crops (Duke University Press). She is currently completing a manuscript called The Philosophy and Politics of Social Ecology. She holds an MA in psychology from Antioch University and a PhD in anthropology from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). Her most meaningful scholarly achievement was receiving an honorary PhD from Murray Bookchin at his kitchen table one day after an eight-hour conversation about the reach and depth of social ecology, after which they cheered, “L’chaim,” before tossing back a good glass of cognac.