Carl Olson is professor emeritus of religious studies at Allegheny College. Besides over 240 reviews and essays published in scholarly journals and book anthologies, he is the author of twenty-three books, including: The Stain of Erro on the Self (2024); The Nostalgia for Origins: Religion, Evolution, Cognition, and Memory (2024); Religious Ways of Experiencing Life (2016); and Indian Asceticism (2015).
Olson has been awarded the National Endowment for the Humanities chair; The Teacher-Scholar Professorship of the Humanities; and Visiting Fellowship at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge.