Koji Toba

Dr. Koji Toba is a Professor of Japanese Literature at the School of Letters, Arts and Sciences at Waseda University. Initially, he started his research focusing on Abe Kobo and his contemporaries, then gradually extended his field of research to the cultural and political movements of the 1950s. He has been researching circle movements, reportage and documentary films, and authors such as Sugiura Minpei, Ishikawa Jun, Kaiko Takeshi, Fuji Masaharu, Komatsu Sakyo, and Ota Yoko. He is currently working on Zadankai (Japanese-style symposium), documentary films on environmental pollution, and the biography of Abe Kobo. In ALC, he is teaching a graduate seminar on artistic and political movements and “Kiroku (reportage/documentary)” in the 1950s. As he is a library lover, you can easily find him in The Richard C. Rudolph East Asian Library during his stay.