Howard Scott Hibbett

Howard Hibbett is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Japanese Literature, Emeritus at Harvard University. Hibbett began Japanese as a sophomore at Harvard College in the Spring Term of 1942. From late 1942 to 1946, he served as a language specialist in the U.S. Army in Washington, D.C. and then came back to Harvard to complete work for the A.B. in 1947 and the Ph.D. in 1950. After a term in the Society of Fellows, he taught at the University of California at Los Angeles from 1952 to 1958, when he returned to Cambridge as Associate Professor of Japanese Literature. Meanwhile, he had spent several years in Japan, first at Tokyo University and then Kyoto University. His publications include studies and translations of Edo and modern literature. Professor Hibbett was editor, with Gen Itasaka, of Modern Japanese: A Basic Reader (1967). This is a two-volume set (Vol I: Vocabularies and Notes; Vol II: Japanese Texts) which became a standard reference in the area and which, by 1985-86, was in its tenth printing.