Joseph Kitagawa Add a review

Joseph Mitsuo Kitagawa (March 8, 1915 – October 7, 1992) was an eminent Japanese American scholar in religious studies. He was professor emeritus and dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is considered one of the founders of the field of the history of religions. He is known for his contributions to the study of religious traditions in Asia and intercultural understanding of the East and the West.

Kitagawa was born in Osaka Prefecture. He graduated from Rikkyo University in Tokyo in 1937. He came to the United States to study theology in 1941. During World War II, Kitagawa was interned at the Minidoka War Relocation Center at Hunt, Idaho, where he remained until October 1945. He received his B.D. from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in 1947. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and joined the faculty of the Divinity School in 1951. He became a U.S. citizen in 1955.

Kitagawa was a founding editor of History of Religions. He served as president of the American Society for the Study of Religions from 1960 to 1972 and Vice President of the International Association for the History of Religions from 1975 to 1985. He was a visiting professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, the University of Tokyo, and Koyasan University.

His wife, Evelyn M. Kitagawa, was a sociologist, and his daughter, Anne Rose Kitagawa, became a notable curator of Asian art.