The Department of English of the Ateneo de Manila University, especially since the resurgence of nationalism in the 1960s, has more sharply viewed its role as inextricably linked not only to the development of what had generally been called "English Studies" in literature and language scholarship but as helping contribute to the understanding of the relationship of culture and society as well.

In the last several decades, the Department of English curricula--the core curriculum, the undergraduate majors' program, the master's and doctoral programs--have transformed remarkably from the paradigm emblematic of "universalizing" claims of English Studies as a neo/colonial academic formation to the localizing compl exities of Filipino nationalism. As such, the English language and literature classroom began to be recognized--not without some degree of turmoil--no longer within the narrow constraints of linguistic skills building and/or literary appreciation, but in the larger context of cultural pedagogy and critical thinking in a Filipino setting.

It has often been said that the larger social development that had inspired curricular and pedagogical shifts have been related to the Filipinization of the Jesuit Society in the late 60s and the early 70s. But it must equally be noted that the academic transformations have also been a result of the need to develop forms of pedagogy and scholarship that would imbibe among the members of the university community the spirit of being "men and women for others." That is to say, to help us understand the complex and often contradictory ways in which, historically, we have been educated to conform and/or resist systems of values, norms, practices, institutions and "maps of meaning" implicated in our linguistic and non-linguistic social codes, which we have inherited. This, in the hope that we could all, in turn, help others understand and shape a truly educated--rather than "miseducated"--Philippine society.

From this perspective, as we enter the 21st century with the increasing multi-dimensional connections across the world, the Department of English yet again has felt the need to address the new challenges of the era of so-called globalization. That is to say, to the extent that it could be said that globalization is at once the global production of the local and the localization of the global, then, the Department of English--as part of a Filipino, Jesuit university--must respond to the new imperatives of the "time-space compression of the shrinking world," including the need to address its global legacy of social asymmetries and economic differences.

Kritika Kultura is one such attempt to respond to the needs of the globalizing world of the academe in general and of Philippine society in particular. As a pioneering electronic journal of language and literary/cultural studies in the Philippines, Kritika Kultura addresses issues relevant to the 21st century within these disciplines even as addressing those same issues would have to be precisely about crossing the very borders of these disciplines: language and literature and cultural policy, cultural politics of representation, the political economy of language, literature and culture, the production of cultural texts, audience reception, systems of representation, effects of texts on concrete readers/audiences, the history and dynamics of canon formation, gender and sexuality, ethnicity, diaspora, nationalism and nationhood, national liberation movements, identity politics, feminism, women's liberation movements, etc. All these and more as we all try to help not only to "understand the world but to change it," to quote the philosopher, economist and historian Karl Marx.

The decision to publish the articles in this pioneering journal articulates the directions toward which the Department of English has set its course. Reconfiguring itself as "a community of educators [standing] at the forefront of English language and literature studies in the Philippines and Asia," the Department particularly sees Kritika Kultura as a (1) forum for the publication of such studies "authored by both Ateneo and non-Ateneo faculty and scholars" and as a (2) "site for the development of ideas and the fostering of debate in the areas of literature, language and culture, and language studies."

Drawing from the research, publication work, and contributions to Philippine theorizing done by faculty and scholars from within the Ateneo and outside of it, Kritika Kultura foregrounds the leadership aspirations of the Department in both literary and cultural studies and language studies in the country through its graduate degree programs. Through its MA Major in Literary and Cultural Studies, the Department seeks "to become a center for literary and cultural studies in the Philippines, animated by the spirit of critical inquiry, attuned to and informed by its conjunctions with other disciplines, and rooted in the concrete cultural context of the Philippines." Through its MA English Language and Literature Teaching, the Department aspires to be the leading Philippine institution in developing the competencies of English language users through relevant and principled language education and research so that English is especially seen and appropriated "as a tool for human liberation and empowerment."