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March is Women’s History Month – Let the expert from Georgia Southern help if you are covering
March is Women’s History Month – a full month dedicated to the efforts, rights and advancement of women in America. Felicity Turner, Ph.D., associate professor of history at Georgia Southern University, specializing in women’s issues and is regularly featured in media speaking to the subject. "This year, the pandemic has clearly demonstrated that, despite the great strides that all women have made toward achieving equality, much remains to be done," said Turner. "In many households, ever more women have taken on the multiple roles of principal caretaker and schoolteacher, while holding down full-time jobs. "Looking to the past helps us understand why the burden of this labor has fallen disproportionately on the shoulders of women. Importantly, however, history also helps us appreciate how women today can continue to work toward equality in the future." If you are a journalist looking to cover this angle, or any other aspect of Women’s History Month – then let us help with your coverage. Felicity Turner is available for interviews — simply reach out to Georgia Southern Director of Communications Jennifer Wise at jwise@georgiasouthern.edu to set and time and date.
A selection of 30 films celebrating the past 20 years of Japanese cinema streams online throughout the U.S. on Japan Society’s virtual cinema, including films by Hirokazu Kore-eda, Naomi Kawase and Takashi Miike Plus, online U.S. premieres of Sion Sono’s Red Post on Escher Street and Yukiko Mishima’s Shape of Red, a special focus on Kiyoshi Kurosawa and a selection of breakout films by up-and-coming filmmakers Red Post on Escher Street © 2021 “Red Post on Escher Street” Film Partners Japan Society and the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan (ACA), in collaboration with the Visual Industry Promotion Organization (VIPO), announce the inaugural ACA Cinema Project online film series 21st Century Japan: Films from 2001-2020, streaming nationwide on Japan Society’s Virtual Cinema from February 5-25, 2021. As Japan’s film industry enters the third decade of the new millennium, this 30-film online series takes a look back at the last 20 years of Japanese cinema to celebrate some of the most remarkable narrative fiction films and filmmakers that define the era. Covering a wide range of production styles and genres—from small budget independent debuts to festival favorites and award-winning major studio releases—this diverse slate of feature and short films offers a guided tour of modern Japanese cinema, including special spotlights dedicated to the work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa and a selection of breakout films by up-and-coming filmmakers. A large majority of the films included are streaming in the U.S. exclusively on Japan Society’s Virtual Cinema. Series highlights include the online U.S. Premiere of Red Post on Escher Street, the latest film by cult favorite director Sion Sono (Love Exposure, 2009)—a comically reflexive, wildly unhinged, return-to-roots feature about a talented young director undergoing the production of a new film. Red Post on Escher Street is co-presented with Grasshopper Film, who will screen the title in tandem with Japan Society as part of the newly launched Projectr Movie Club from February 5-18. In addition, director Yukiko Mishima’s female-driven romantic drama Shape of Red makes its online U.S. premiere—a steamy tearjerker about a tenuous love affair adapted from the novel by Naoki Prize-winning author Rio Shimamoto featuring popular stars Kaho and Satoshi Tsumabuki. Billed as “Special Screenings,” these titles are planned to include pre-recorded video Q&As with the respective film’s director. Other highlights include harder-to-see gems by some of Japan’s most internationally prominent filmmakers, including: Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 2009 Doona Bae-starring fantasy drama Air Doll; Naomi Kawase’s 2014 Cannes competition title and self-proclaimed masterpiece Still the Water; Takashi Miike’s 2005 family-friendly monster adventure film The Great Yokai War; Shinya Tsukamoto’s 2015 adaptation of Shohei Ooka’s famous anti-war novel Fires on the Plain; trailblazing gay director Ryosuke Hashiguchi’s 2001 LGBT-themed comedic drama Hush!; and the award-winning 2006 murder mystery drama Sway by Miwa Nishikawa, whose latest film Under the Open Sky (2020) premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. “While it’s impossible to really capture the last two decades of Japanese narrative fiction filmmaking in its full breadth, we are excited to share at least the tip of the iceberg for these three weeks in February,” says K. F. Watanabe, Deputy Director of Film at Japan Society. “Online or otherwise, a large majority of these titles remain unavailable to watch with English subtitles in the U.S., so I hope this series provides an opportunity to create new fans of filmmakers such as Naoko Ogigami or Shuichi Okita and expand any preconceptions of what modern Japanese cinema can offer.” Katsura Toda, Senior Specialist for Arts and Culture at the Agency for Cultural Affairs, says, “The ACA Cinema Project was launched with the hope of sharing the diverse appeal of Japanese films to audiences around the world and to create more opportunities for these films to be seen. We are pleased to present U.S. audiences with the works of a great variety of directors—including well-established masters, filmmakers with distinctive voices and rising stars of the 21st century—and hope that many people will be able to encounter Japanese films in a fresh way.” $99 All-Access Passes with a 21-day rental window go on sale January 29 through February 4. $8 individual tickets with a 3-day rental window go on sale February 5. Individual tickets for Red Post on Escher Street and Shape of Red are $12. Japan Society members receive a 20% discount on all tickets via coupon code. All films screen online at japancuts.japansociety.org in Japanese with English subtitles unless otherwise noted. All titles available within the U.S. from February 5-25 unless sold out or otherwise noted. Titles also available beyond the U.S. are noted below. Lineup and other details are subject to change. For complete information visit japansociety.org. View the full film line-up here. Screeners available for most titles. Please send all press inquiries to Michael Lieberman at pr.lieberman@gmail.com. For inquiries regarding Japan Society and its Virtual Cinema, please contact Allison Rodman at arodman@japansociety.org.
This is a business imperative, not a tech issue, says Brunswick’s Cybersecurity and Privacy team Cyber threats are generating some scary statistics: $400 billion a year in losses from attacks, with some larger businesses experiencing more than 12,000 attacks each year. But there is also good news. Companies are recognizing that cybersecurity is not a technology concern but rather a critical business issue and one they are preparing to deal with. To address the significant business and reputational risks involved, companies are using a cross-functional, top-to-bottom approach, one that treats cybersecurity as a business imperative. Many companies are beginning to strengthen their “human firewall,” creating a business culture where every employee sees cybersecurity as their responsibility. People, not software, are often the weakest link in a security system and that is a problem no software patch will solve. Regulation is growing increasingly complex and governments’ expectations differ from those of companies and consumers. The rules are murky and lag far behind the technology – and the threat. To deal with competing and at times conflicting requirements, some companies are moving beyond the minimum demanded of them, and aiming for a higher standard. To be effective, a company’s cybersecurity program needs to weave these threads into its underlying business plan. Cybersecurity is more than just a strong defense, more than compliance. It must be a part of corporate culture. It represents an opportunity to differentiate yourself from your competitors, increase the efficiency of your operations and earn a greater level of trust from customers, shareholders and the community.
COVID-19 has raised the stakes for boards, argues Brunswick’s Paddy McGuinness, former UK Deputy National Security Adviser. We now live with COVID-19. Fewer business leaders are making the mistake of talking about “post-COVID” or “when this is over.” The better of them have factored in COVID-19 related constraints to their medium-term plans and are even thinking about how the world may change in the long-term. They are building capacity to take advantage of an early recovery within months, yet they are modeling and encouraging grit for current and indeed harder conditions to last much longer. In the past, when health emergencies—say the Spanish Flu pandemic of a century ago—subsided, there was a greater return to economic normality than had been expected during the crisis. Extreme events often heighten or even distort our perception of wider risks. That old journalistic cliché “one thing is certain, nothing will be the same again” is rarely true. But the pandemic has created the expectation that businesses will be resilient—that they will be able to respond to an event and recover to the state prior to the event, incorporating the lessons learned into business practice. Many business leaders feel they have not done too badly responding to a once-in-a-hundred-years event. Business Continuity Plans (BCPs), which were understandably sketchy for pandemics, were pulled out of second-line risk management and owned and improved in real-time by executive committees. The transition to remote working and, at least in Asia and some of Europe, the gradual return to offices again, has been managed. Services and even vital production have been maintained. Leaders have absorbed the personal and collective strain of this. Good reason then for some satisfaction as they delegate certain COVID-19 responses and focus on the economic tsunami that follows the pandemic. The public seems to largely agree with business leaders’ assessments. While many national and scientific leaders find themselves beset by “blamestorming,” corporate executives have been given more slack. They weren’t expected to have foreseen a pandemic. Their sometimes scrabbling responses are understood. However, behind this lucky pass lurks an expectation that businesses will now be more prepared for crises and foreseeable risks. Resilience cannot be relegated to BCPs and traditional risk-management structures. It is categorically a board issue—regulators, lawyers, politicians and the public say so. The reputations of individual board members and the collective are at stake. Think how fast leaders have been expected to respond to the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement. Alacrity will be required. The speed and scale of decisions in response to the pandemic leaves board committees playing catch up to assure themselves that risks have been managed. The move to working from home has been rapid, so too the digitization of the business. Some see these as new, streamlined ways of working, yet the negative consequences are not yet fully apparent. Working from home, for instance, is attractive to some employees as well as chief financial officers, who may relish the chance to reduce fixed costs. Concerns about the impact on the coherence of the business’s culture, its productivity and innovation, the security of data held at home, hardships for those in difficult home conditions, and, indeed, the needs of the younger demographic who seem to favor a return to the office, need to be given due consideration. It may be a case of “decide in haste, repent at leisure.” Resilience is categorically a board issue—regulators, lawyers, politicians and the public say so. The reputations of individual board members and the collective are at stake. Boards also need assurance that the business has regained its balance and can manage parallel or interrelated crises. In recent weeks we have been helping several clients respond to major cyber events unrelated to the COVID-19 outbreak. They have probably needed more external support than otherwise because their leadership capacity was inevitably denuded by pandemic response. And they have benefitted from us already knowing each other and having experience of how to work together in crisis. After the Great Financial Crash there was a heavy focus on balance-sheet resilience and having the requisite finance skills on boards. Business leaders are now beset by advice on the heightened obligation to be resilient in much a broader sense of the word. Regulators, lawyers and risk consultants are sharing checklists of factors for executive committees to take into account when managing risks and for boards to oversee. The challenge here is defining what changes your specific business needs and how to actually bring those about. Shareholders will be expecting a judicious move away from “just in time” systems to ones that can endure foreseeable risks. This isn’t just about potential legal liability or reputational risk. This is about setting your business culture for success. Undermanage risks and the business is wide open to damage from foreseeable shocks with all the loss of confidence and capability that follows. Overmanage and the business losses its competitive edge just when there is opportunity in the recovery. In order to track broader resilience, boards and their committees will need access to a wider set of skills and insight. Board membership emerges as an obvious area of focus. Yet each board will take more time and belonging to too many—“over boarding”—may well be unacceptable. Risk methodology and information flows will also have to be reviewed, alongside how to strengthen board members’ awareness and skills. Before the pandemic, chairs and CEOs were already wrestling with this for their difficult-to-price risks, such as data, technology risks and cyber. Individual experts on boards created siloed responsibility for what should have been a shared risk. A focus on process and method often led to a focus on the management, rather than genuine oversight of, risks. External advice didn’t always help (as we have learned from the plethora of competing advice around COVID-19). No single intervention will meet the new standard for resilience. Nor will simple prescription. A broader and more articulated approach is required if governance is to maintain stakeholder confidence and corporate reputation.
Kamala Harris Is First Woman, and Woman of Color, Elected Vice President
History was made on Saturday, November 7, when Kamala Harris was elected vice president of the United States, 100 years after women first won the right to vote. "Although our new president will look like almost all the others we have had in our history, the fact that we will have a woman of color in the second highest position in our executive branch for the first time ever has an importance that cannot be understated," says Teresa Boyer, EdD, director of the Anne Welsh McNulty Institute for Women's Leadership at Villanova University. "When it comes to our highest office, Americans have been famously resistant and behind other countries in selecting a woman for the role. Perhaps having a woman in the vice presidency could shift that barrier that we haven't seemed to get past." Dr. Boyer adds, "We will also have a record number of women in this congressional delegation. Although Democrats have historically sent the most women to Congress, this year, the Republicans are the ones who set a record, with at least 32 women in the House and Senate—two more than their previous record of 20 in 2006. Democrats still have the greater representation of women, though, with at least 102." "Themes of gender and race have been threaded throughout this election, as they underlie many of the crises we are currently facing as a nation. The tight races mixed with progress on women's representation indicate a national culture on the cusp of change—one exploring openness to diverse identities in the role of public leader. Not so much a wave as a slow inching forward—but forward nonetheless." "Many have said Biden will be a transitional president—due to his age, and his role as a party elder—but perhaps he would be better noted as a potentially transformational president, or a conduit to the diverse America reflected in our leadership."
On the morning of Saturday, November 7, Joe Biden was announced by numerous media outlets as the projected winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. President-elect Biden will be only the second Roman Catholic to occupy the nation's highest office. Massimo Faggioli, PhD, is a professor of historical theology at Villanova University. He recently discussed the significance of Biden being only the second Catholic elected president and the work he has in front of him. "Biden is a 'Pope Francis Catholic'—much more aligned to the political culture of the pontificate than John Kerry was as a 'Pope John Paul II Catholic' in 2004, or Kennedy, a good Catholic in 1960. When Kennedy, the first Catholic president, was elected in 1960, U.S. Catholicism was much less divided and in much better relations with the Vatican compared to today," Dr. Faggioli said. "It's the first time we have a Catholic president since the return of religion in the public square." "Anti-Francis Catholicism in the U.S. goes much deeper than Trump Catholics and includes a number of U.S. bishops. It will be difficult for Biden to navigate the triangular relations between Vatican-White House-U.S. bishops," continued Dr. Faggioli. "The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is paralyzed and—especially on social issues—it is difficult to take distance from a rhetoric that is very similar to the GOP, and this will show in dealing with a Biden presidency. Biden as a Catholic will have against him a powerful Catholic media system in the U.S. that makes no mystery of its fierce opposition against Biden's and Francis' Catholicism."
Rob Campbell on why it pays to shake things up
Rob is a mischief-maker and passionately believes in culture, creativity and chaos. He’s worked with names like NIKE, Virgin and Metallica at agencies including Cynic, Wieden+Kennedy and R/GA and has proudly been called an “asshole” by Lars Ulrich, Richard Branson and Dan Wieden. I ask Rob what’s he’s done in his life that has perhaps raised some eyebrows, but that he’s most proud of. He tells us his COVID story, and shares positive insights. We hear how three African American women fundamentally changed his view on the world, and how being exposed to completely different cultures have shaped his life.
Carter Murray on leadership in today’s world
When I was last in New York I met with my friend Carter Murray, Global Chief Executive Officer of FCB, one of the world’s largest global advertising agency networks. Carter oversees the agency’s 120 offices in 80 countries, so as you can imagine, he has a lot to say about leadership. We talked about cultural intelligence and diversity and what makes successful leaders. I ask him how organisational culture has changed, if he still values the same things, and what sort of leaders he’s looking for now.
Continuing to Learn and Explore American History
In the United States, students take several American history courses throughout their K-12 experience. So, why should students bother to continue taking American history courses in college? For Southern Utah University's Dr. Mark Miller, the answer is simple. “When I teach a history course, I am always looking for ways to point out how an issue or event in the past is relevant to something going on in today's world,” said Dr. Miller. “With this year's presidential election going on there have been plenty of examples to tie into regarding past politics and past political crises we have lived through as Americans.” Dr. Miller has conducted some exciting research that will be published in 2021. His upcoming articles includes: “Polygamy under the Red Cliffs: Women’s Voices and Historical Memory at Centennial Park” in Utah Historical Quarterly, “A River Again: Fossil Creek, Desert Fishes, and Dam Removal in the American Southwest” in Pacific Historical Review, and “‘One Territory, Many Peoples:” Racial and Ethnic Groups and the Development of Arizona Territory” in The Smoke Signal. “I think my work on plural marriage and environmental history shows that history is never dead,” said Dr. Miller. “It reveals that in current debates history is quite important. What happened in the past still informs the present. Since both of these topics are quite controversial today, I think historians provide a valuable service by exposing the history behind debates over allowing polygamy in modern America or whether we should make trade offs in development and water use to preserve unique species. Knowledge of people who practice plural marriage and their religious history as well as the history of preservation efforts toward endangered species is vital to all participants in the debates.” Dr. Mark Miller is a professor of history and the department chair of History, Sociology, & Anthropology at Southern Utah University. His research and teaching specialties include United States History, American West, Borderlands, Indigenous Culture and History, World Civilization, and Latin America. He has published articles and books on modern American Indian History, most recently Forgotten Tribes (2006) and Claiming Tribal Identity (2013). He has published articles on race and ethnicity, on indigenous identity and politics in several journals. Dr. Miller is familiar with the media and available for an interview. Simply visit his profile.
Baylor Cultural Critic and Author of “Living with the Living Dead” Talks Books and Pop Culture During COVID-19 Time at home is increasing as shelter in place orders and working from home become the norm for many people during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this season of uncertainty, many turn to books, movies and other pieces of pop culture pass the time. Greg Garrett, Ph.D., professor of English at Baylor University and expert cultural critic, supports pop culture and literature as important to meaningfully escaping current fears as well as contextualizing experience and emotions. “A great novel, movie or memoir is a gift when we need distraction, but it can also offer us the dramatic reminder that these are the things that make us truly human: love, community, compassion and faith,” Garrett said. “The world may be shifting beneath our feet, but we’re going to be fine as long as we keep the important things in view.” In a Q&A with Garrett, he gave insight on what can be learned from zombie pandemic pop culture, touched on how literature has fit culturally into pandemic history and offered advice on books to pick up during extra free time at home. Q: You’re the author of “Living with the Living Dead: The Wisdom of the Zombie Apocalypse.” What can we learn from zombie pandemic pop culture? A: Our most pervasive form of pandemic literature in recent years is the story of the Zombie Apocalypse, which has been told in novels, movies, games and comics. It’s been the inciting conflict of “The Walking Dead,” and the underlying threat in “Game of Thrones,” two of the most popular television series in history. One of the attractions of zombie literature is that zombies can serve as a metaphor for lots of things at once: for pandemic, sure, but also for economic unrest, political chaos, terrorism and other things that keep us up at night. But as Max Brooks, author of the seminal zombie novel “World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War” (2006), notes: however difficult our lives might be at this moment, at least the dead are not wandering the earth and trying to eat us! We can, Brooks says, close the book, turn off the TV, and at least be secure in that. A book like “World War Z” or a movie like “Sean of the Dead” (2004) or “Zombieland” (2009) can soothe some of our tension since this story of a world coming off the rails is our story, yet clearly not our story. Q: How does literature fit into cultural history events like pandemics? A: One of the most important gifts that great stories can give us is the realization that we’re not alone in our experience, and that, in fact, our experience is not unprecedented. Anyone wanting to understand that this dark time is not in fact the darkest time should read historian Barbara Tuchman’s masterful “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century” (1978), which explores the Black Death of 1348-50, a pandemic so awful it killed a third of the populations of Europe and the Middle East. Daniel Defoe’s “A Journal of the Plague Year” (1722) is a novel recalling the horror of the Black Death in London some 60 years prior to its writing. In that book, Defoe’s narrator says he writes about his choices in such detail because he believes that they might be “of moment to those who come after me.” That is, he hopes his story might be of use to future sufferers like ourselves, and it is. Q: Literature can also provide escape from tough times. What other books should we be reading right now? A: In the zombie spirit, you could read “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” a 2009 parody by Seth Grahame-Smith of the Jane Austen novel. But if you’re simply seeking meaningful escape from our current story, you couldn’t do much better than reading (or re-reading) the actual “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), one of my favorite novels. I can’t wait to fall back into the world of the Bennets and worry about something besides viral curves and travel bans. During the weeks we expect to be largely confined to the house, my family and I are making reading lists. Mine includes Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” (1926) and James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time” (1963), both of which I plan to teach in my American lit class at Baylor this fall, and Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” (1987), which will scare me and break my heart in ways that have nothing to do with this pandemic. ABOUT GREG GARRETT, PH.D. Greg Garrett, Ph.D., professor of English at Baylor University, is a popular theologian and cultural critic as well as the author of two dozen novels, memoir and nonfiction books including “Living with the Living Dead: The Wisdom of the Zombie Apocalypse” (Oxford University Press, 2017). ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 18,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 90 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions. THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY The College of Arts & Sciences is Baylor University’s oldest and largest academic division, consisting of 25 academic departments and seven academic centers and institutes. The more than 5,000 courses taught in the College span topics from art and theatre to religion, philosophy, sociology and the natural sciences. Faculty conduct research around the world, and research on the undergraduate and graduate level is prevalent throughout all disciplines. Visit www.baylor.edu/artsandsciences.
