Human beings, it seems, have always been very inventive in creating new means of communication. These means run the gamut from music to warfare and, in both of these extremes, the advance of technology has played an important part in satisfying a basic human need, the need to establish and to stay in contact with fellow human beings – for peaceful or non-peaceful purposes.

For some time already, the Internet and e-mail have changed (and sometimes even replaced) more traditional means of communication. There are, perhaps, two extremes in the use of the Internet. One is the phenomenon known as "Twitter." What was once said of a very prolific writer, that "He doesn't have one unpublished thought," now applies to anybody in possession of a computer or a cellphone. The other extreme is a certain webpage on the Nanzan University server, a webpage that hasn't changed since it was established at the end of the last century.

This section of the Nanzan University webpage aims somewhere between these two extremes, at a point somewhere between the timeless irrelevance of so-called eternal principles and the mindless invitation "Follow me on Twitter" from people who don't have the slightest idea where they themselves are going. It is a humble attempt to reach out to more people connected with and interested in Nanzan University, to reach out beyond the confines of what St. Francis Xavier termed the “Devil's Language,” aka Japanese.

My hope is that this English language EPISTOLA, together with its Japanese language companion, will be taken as an invitation to engage in an ongoing conversation within the Nanzan International Students Alumni Network.

President of Nanzan University, Michael Calmano,S.V.D.