Kojin Karatani was born in 1941 in Amagasaki city, located between Osaka and Kobe. He received his B.A. in economics and M.A. in English literature, both from Tokyo University. Awarded the Gunzo Literary Prize for an essay on Natsume Soseki in 1969, he began working actively as a literary critic, while teaching at Hosei University in Tokyo.

In 1975 he was invited to Yale University to teach Japanese literature as a visiting professor, where he became acquainted with Yale critics such as Paul de Man and Fredric Jameson. After publishing �gOrigins of Modern Japanese Literature�h in 1980, Karatani proceeded from literary criticism to more theoretical studies ranging from �gArchitecture as Metaphor: language, number, money�h to �gTranscritique: on Kant and Marx. At the same time, he made a political commitment to editing the quarterly journal 'Critical Space' with Akira Asada. "Critical Space" was the most influential intellectual media in Japan until it folded in 2002. In 2000, Karatani also organized New Associationist Movement (NAM).

Since 1990 he has taught regularly at Columbia University as a visiting professor of comparative literature. He has also taught as a visiting professor at Cornell and UCLA. He was a regular member of ANY, the international architects' conference which was held annually for the last decade of the 20th century.

In 2006, Karatani retired from teaching in Japan to devote himself full-time to his lifework.