Ogura Kizo is a Professor of Kyoto University. Born in 1959 in Tokyo. Upon his graduation from the Department of German Language and Literature, Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo, Mr. Ogura joined Dentsu Inc. After five years in Dentsu, he went to South Korea to study. He earned credits in the doctoral course of the Faculty of Philosophy (Oriental Philosophy) of the Graduate School of Seoul National University. In 1996, he joined the Foreign Language Center of Tokai University as a full-time lecturer after returning to Japan. In 2006, he became an associate professor at the Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, and assumed his current position in 2012. Mr. Ogura also had been a lecturer for the Korean language program of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) from 2001 to 2007, and had also served as a committee member of “Japan-Korea Friendship Year 2005” hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and "Japan-Korea Exchange Festival 2006", etc.
His academic interests include the structuring of East Asia based on Eastern thought, culture, and philosophy. Among his many publications are Kankoku wa ikko no tetsugaku dearu [Korea as One Philosophy](1998), Kankoku, hikisakareru kosumosu [Korea, Torn Cosmos](2001), Kanryu inpakuto [Impact of Korean Wave](2005), Rekishi ninshiki o norikoeru [Overcoming Historical Perceptions] (2005), and Chosen shisou zenshi [A Brief History of Korean Thought] (2017).