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Joseph Kitagawa Wiki Page Edits (Draft 1):
Joseph Mitsuo Kitagawa (March 8, 1915 – October 7, 1992) was a Japanese American historian who has written articles and full-length books on topics pertaining to religion.

Early Life: 1915 - 1951
On March 8, 1915, Kitagawa was born to Christian Japanese parents in the city of Osaka. His father was an episcopal priest and as a youth he grew up in the minority community of Christians in Japan. In "Vocation and Maturity", a brief autobiographical account of himself, he mentions how he became interested in "saving knowledge of the sacred past" and gaining "insight into human nature and its predicament" because of his reverence of Confucius and the Apostle Paul. Kitagawa's own experiences and studies led him to a life-long commitment of mediating between and among contrasting viewpoints. He graduated from Rikkyo University, affiliated with the Episcopal Church, and like his brother followed their father in becoming an Episcopal priest. Coming to the United States to continue his theological studies just before World War II, he was caught in the internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans for the duration of the war. He commented later that, while ministering to the religious needs of fellow internees, these relocation camps were his real introduction to American society. He supported America's democratic ideals, but noted, "America's failure to fulfill her creed of democratic equality", not only in his own internment experiences, but domestically on racial issues and internationally on refugee matters. Not until after the war, in October 1945, could he resume his studies, first taking a bachelor of divinity degree at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, in 1947. During this time he also organized an Episcopal mission to Chicago's Japanese population; this endeavor eventually became the Asian ministry of the diocese. He studied for his doctorate under Joachim Wach at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, completing his dissertation on "Kobo-daishi and Shingon Buddhism" in 1951.

Academic Career: 1951 - 1985
Kitagawa joined the faculty of his alma mater in 1951 and served in a number of capacities, first assisting his mentor Joachim Wach in cultivating the postwar interest in the study of religion. Their efforts to combine the earlier American tradition of comparative religion with the European notion of Religionswissenschaft were cut short by Wach's premature death in 1955. Kitagawa was helped secure the appointment of Mircea Eliade at the University of Chicago; together with Charles H. Long, and later other scholars, they established the "history of religions" approach, as epitomized in the journal they founded, History of Religions: An International Journal for Comparative Studies (1961–). While promoting the study of religion on the graduate level, Kitagawa helped educate a large group of historians of religion, and trained a number of doctoral students in the area of Japanese religion, who develop the field of "Japanese religion" within North America. He was an advocate of comparative religion as a component of undergraduate education, and of the role of trained historians of religions to teach such courses; he foresaw the role of state institutions as playing a prominent function in the teaching about religion, once undertaken only in private institutions. Kitagawa's students, both those in his special area of Japanese religion, and in other fields of the history of religions, found academic positions throughout the world, especially in the United States and Japan. He is remembered by his colleagues and students as impeccable in dress and manners, a consummate diplomat, and an able and tireless administrator.