Olav Smith (Ph.D. Claremont Graduate University) Olav Bryant Smith was born and raised in Washington, D.C. His philosophical training began at Furman University in South Carolina. For a time, however, he became a U.S. Navy linguist, studying Arabic at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. Informally, he studied Sufism with his Kurdish teacher, and began practicing a spiritual training called the latihan kejiwaan of Subud. Olav then joined the U.S. Army Infantry, where he served with the Big Red 1 in Kansas, and the 1st Armored Division in Germany. After visits to Bali, Australia, and Java, Olav returned to complete his B.A. in Philosophy in 1993 at the California State University, Chico. Olav studied at the Claremont Graduate University, receiving an M.A. in 1995, and a Ph.D. in 2001. His dissertation, Myths of the Self: Narrative Identity and Postmodern Metaphysics, was published by Lexington Books. While discussing Kant, Heidegger, Whitehead, and Paul Ricoeur, Olav argues not only that these philosophers support story-telling as a primary means of understanding ourselves and the world we live in, but that the reason this works is because reality actually engages in a process of experience, interpretation, and expression that lends itself most readily to narrative interpretations.
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