Toru Haga Toru Haga is President and Professor of Comparative Literature and Culture at the Kyoto University of Art and Design and Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo and International Research Center for Japanese Studies. He was born in 1931 in Yamagata City, Japan, and educated at the University of Tokyo in French (B.A.) and comparative literature and culture. (M.A. and Ph.D.). President Haga has received many honors, among them the Suntory Letters and Sciences Prize, Osaragi Jiro Prize, Meiji-mura Prize, and Purple Ribbon Medal. In addition to his work in Japan, President Haga was a visiting research associate at Princeton University (1965-67) and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1975-76). His Western publications include: Continuité et avant-garde au Japon (1961); Cent ans d'etudes françaises au Japon (1973); "The Formation of Realism in Meiji Painting: The Artistic Career or Takahasi Yuichi" (1971); "The Western World and Japan in the 18th Century" (1978), and "The Diplomatic Background of Japonisme: The Case of Sir Rutherford Alcock" (1980). President Haga's Japanese publications include: Collective Essays in Comparative Literature and Art (1981); The Small World of Yosano Buson (1986); The Crossroad of Cultures (1989); The Sky of Yesterday (1992); and Land of Poetry, Land of Poets (1997).
