Featuring (in order of appearance)…

He was an ACLS Burkhardt fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at New York University, and a Visiting Scholar at Australia National University.

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My work focuses on popular reception and remediation of computer technologies, as well as on design for digital media. Now I teach literature, digital humanities, history and theory of media, and multimedia practice.

Increasingly, my research engages with emergent forms of social media as a set of complex and consequential rhetorical, literary, and social practices undertaken by ordinary people across the full spectrum of daily life. My current project, a book-length study called Deciphering Digital Life Writing, aims to produce a mode of criticism suitable to extant and future online communication tools, attuned to notions of personal identity, and to the constructive role of technology in mediating these online. Basically, I’m trying to figure out how people decide what to say about themselves online, and what motivates these decisions.

» University of Waterloo Profile
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During the 2015-2016 Presidential primary season, he served as a spokesperson for the Bernie Sanders campaign and his soon to be released book A Republic of Owners, focuses on programs and policies that are aimed at increasing the share of average Americans’ incomes deriving from business capital rather than labor. Robert has dedicated much of his life’s work towards advocating for, and actively creating greater equality in America and the elimination of the current divide between the average American and the 1%.

A Fellow of the Century Foundation and regular commissioned author for the New America Foundation, Hockett also does regular consulting work for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the International Monetary Fund, Americans for Financial Reform, the ‘Occupy’ Cooperative, and a number of federal and state legislators and local governments.

Prior to doing his doctoral work and entering academe, he worked for the International Monetary Fund and clerked for the Honorable Deanell Reece Tacha, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

» Cornell University Profile
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Paul is the current Chairman of Baird and a member of the board of directors of Baird Financial Group. Paul is largely credited as being responsible for the renewal and growth of Baird since his involvement in 1994 and has become known for his ‘no assholes’ policy that exists within the framework of the company;  something that has contributed to Baird being recognized as one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For since 2004.  As someone who works within the financial sector and has dedicated his life to creating a better working environment for both associates and for clients, Paul is uniquely familiar with the push back against asshole culture.

In addition to his work with Baird, Paul serves as a member on the boards of over a dozen education, arts and community-based organizations. He has received numerous awards and recognition for his work including the Medical College of Wisconsin Warren P. Knowles Humanitarian Award in 2014 and the Milwaukee Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

» Baird Profile
» Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For since 2004

Over the years I created strategies and tools which helped me and I want to share this knowledge. I am frequently called upon by media and government agencies to discuss the subject of workplace bullying/harassment. I was part of two Senate Committee reports and provided testimony and written recommendations on workplace culture. The key is to have employees who thrive in the workplace and that makes better business sense. I believe that every person deserves to have a safe workplace.

In June 2015, I presented at TEDx Winnipeg on ‘Tools to Survive Workplace Bullying’. The goal of my motivational presentations are to create and foster a positive work environment, create a better understanding of mental health, stress and finally encourage those living with PTSD.

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John Cleese’s influence is also felt in the corporate world as the founder of Video Arts, the world’s largest provider of business training programs. Cleese brings his award-winning series of videos to life on stage with his trademark boundless energy and inimitable sense of humour, exploring corporate etiquette, customer service, creative thinking and problem solving.

Luckily for us John Cleese is a great fan of Aaron James’ book. So much so, in fact, that he has tweeted about it more than once. For example: “I recommend an excellent book about people who feel no guilt for their wrong actions. It’s written by philosopher Aaron James: ‘Assholes‘.” And a year later, in reference to Sepp Blatter of the International Olympic Committee: “To understand Sepp better, I recommend ‘Assholes: A Theory‘ by Aaron James, an American professor of Political Philosophy, with a Harvard Ph.D.”

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Her areas of expertise include early parental attachment, anxiety, trauma, depression, learning challenges, teenagers with an emphasis on gender/sexuality identity and blended, divorced and marital couples. She recently retired as the Clinical Director of a residential treatment facility servicing low income, underserved multi-generational mothers of color and their young children. She is an inveterate traveler (the more exotic the better), a project-er, gardener, animal rescuer, music, art and chocolate aficionado, and one who can laugh at herself and the insanity and absurdity of it all.

He is author of seven books including The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, The Asshole Survival Guide, and Good Boss, Bad Boss.

Sutton has been teaching classes on the psychology of management and the workplace at Stanford since 1983. He is co-founder of the Center for Work, Technology and Organization, which he co-directed from 1996 to 2006. He is also co-founder of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.  His current Friction Project is exploring why organizations make the right things too hard to do, and the wrong things too easy.

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» Stanford University Profile
» 15 Things I Believe

Since 1989, he has done a language feature on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” and his commentaries on language, culture, and politics have appeared in the Sunday New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the American Prospect, Forbes, Fortune, and other publications. A winner of the Linguistic Society of America’s Language and the Public Interest Award in 2001, he is the author of The Way We Talk Now (2001), Going Nucular (2004), Talking Right (2006), The Years of Talking Dangerously (2009) and most recently, Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years (2012). He lives in San Francisco.

During my time in the military I advocated for gay rights by being the first openly gay Marine in my battalion. After the Corps, I went to a small community college in Bellingham, WA. Here I excelled in my academics, joined the student assembly, won the Transforming Lives Award, and was accepted into Cornell University. At Cornell, I acted as the Director of Communications for The Cornell University Veterans Association (CUVA) and wrote columns on such issues as toxic masculinity in fraternities for the university paper, The Cornell Daily Sun. Since graduating in 2018, I have worked at Amazon as the L4 Area Manager.

Colb has co-authored a book about the connection between animal rights and fetal rights, Beating Hearts: Abortion and Animal Rights, published by Columbia University Press in 2016. She has also authored a book about animal rights, Mind If I Order the Cheeseburger? And Other Questions People Ask Vegans (Lantern 2013). She composes a bi-weekly column on Justia’s Verdict as well as regular posts on the blog, Dorf on Law.

» Justia’s Verdict Profile
» Dorf on Law

In 2017 she testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs admonishing Congress stating that “if Congress truly wants to foster economic growth, it should take affirmative measures to assure adequate credit flows toward infrastructure and cutting-edge industry, rather than deregulating so as to permit a return to wealth-destroying, bubble-and-bust cycles in secondary markets.” To further this point, she referenced a new proposal offered by herself and Professor Robert Hockett, to establish what both call a new National Investment Authority.

» Cornell University Profile

A deep connoisseur of Italy, in 2012, with Annalisa Piras, he co-authored and acted as a narrator in Girlfriend in a Coma. This is a documentary feature film on Italy, depicting its situation over the past two and a half decades – namely since Berlusconi entered the political arena. It has been widely broadcasted and seen by more than 1.5 million people. He and Piras then established The Wake Up Foundation, dedicated to using film for public education about the challenges facing western societies, and which will hold its inaugural Wake Up Europe Festival for social impact documentaries in Turin, Italy, in May 2019.

Emmott’s wide exposure to international issues and developments allows him a broad perspective on cultural differences, their roots and evolutions – particularly among Italy and Japan.”

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» The Wake Up Foundation

In The Catholic School, Albinati investigates the 70s “Circeo massacre,” in which three wealthy boys (his own schoolmates) raped and murdered two girls of a lesser background. The actual case is in fact a pretext to explore how extreme right wing politics and gender education can shape abusive personalities. The nine years spent by Albinati studying the phenomenon and writing the book provide an extremely interesting angle to his analysis of assholery – both he and Aaron James classify it as a predominantly male trait. He delivers this analysis on camera with his usual intensity and insight.

Through this personal lens, Zanardo depicts the profound cultural decay experienced in Italy today, springing from the pervasive spread of Berlusconi’s private TV channels, and the consequent dumbing down of state TV, previously of a high quality. Zanardo has also been engaged in an awareness campaign for schools and universities on the negative image of womanhood on television and in media, both in Italy and abroad. She is convinced issues of gender are deeply entwined with asshole behaviour.

» Website
» Il corpo delle donne (The Body of Women)
» Twitter

Parks analyses how Italian social structure functions from an original and well-studied perspective. This is due to his expertise in Italian culture and history combined with his keen interest in its politics and social system. He also considers how a sense of identifying with, or wanting to belong, to a group can allow for, or lead to, asshole behaviour.

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» New York Books Profile
» London Review of Books Profile

Glowing with charisma and wit, Luxuria, shares some of the countless episodes in which she has been the target of assholery – from her childhood in a small town in the south of Italy, to when she was in Parliament, to dealing with social media trolls today. She tackles other general issues revolving around asshole behaviour and psychology, and details how she learned to confront assholes through irony.

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She also Co-founded MailRank, a startup acquired by Facebook in 2011. In 2016, bethanye helped launch Project Include, a non-profit focused on increasing intersectional diversity and inclusion in tech companies. She has been featured in The Atlantic and Business Insider, and was named to Forbes list of the Top 50 Women in Tech in 2018.

With her direct and spontaneous attitude, she tells us about her career and her experiences with all the assholes she has met – including one of the trolls of Vladimir Luxuria, another interview participant of our documentary.

Leslie holds a Bachelor of Science from Miami University of Ohio. She has been actively involved in the human resources committee for the Securities Industry Association. Under Leslie’s leadership, they meet and network annually. In 2017, Leslie became Board Chair for Partners for Schools That Can Milwaukee.  She is also on the board of directors for the Milwaukee College Preparatory School, formerly the Marva Collins Preparatory School.