B. J. Bullert is a communication scholar and a documentary filmmaker. Her current intellectual interests focus broadly on making media for social change. Her intellectual moorings rest in the qualitative sociology of Howard S. Becker and the historian Howard Zinn. She is the author of Public Television: Politics and the Battle Over Documentary Film (Rutgers University Press 1997) and a handful of scholarly articles about film and politics.
Bullert has taught communication at American University, Muhlenberg College, and the University of Washington. She has served as a Research Fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, where she studied the integral role of public relations professionals in shaping the sweatshop awareness movement. At Oxford, she studied the history of ideas and wrote a thesis about Adam Smith and the Unenlightened.
Bullert maintains an ongoing career as a documentary filmmaker. Her company, Seattle Films Hidden Histories LLC, is dedicated to producing works about the Pacific Northwest. To learn more, visit https://vimeo.com/bjbullert and www.seattlefilms.org.
- BA, Philosophy, Boston University
- MLitt, Politics, St. Antony’s College, Oxford University
- PhD, Communication, University of Washington
- “Space Needle: A Hidden History,” 2019, Seattle Channel broadcasts 2020.
- “Fishermen’s Terminal Revisited,” 2015, Seattle Channel broadcasts.
- “Dancing Lives,” Seattle Channel broadcasts and available online, 2013.
- “Building Trust: A Decade of Trustworthy Computing,” 2012. Produced for Microsoft.
- “Everett DuPen: Sculptor,” half-hour portrait of the artist; Seattle International Film Festival premiere 2007; KCTS broadcasts 2008 and the Seattle Channel.
- “Fishermen’s Terminal,” KCTS broadcast 2005
- “Space Needle at 40,” 2001, Seattle Channel.
- “Chief Seattle,” KCTS broadcast 2001 and on the Seattle Channel.
- “Progressive Public Relations, Sweatshops and the Net,” Political Communication,17:403-407, 2000.
- “Strategic Public Relations, Sweatshops and the Making of a Global Movement,” Shorenstein Center publication, Harvard University, 2000.
- “Public Television: Politics and the Battle over Documentary Film” (Rutgers University Press, 1997)
To learn more about Bullert’s film work, please visit www.seattlefilms.org and https://vimeo.com/bjbullert.
- Member, Cinema Seattle
- Member, Seattle Documentary Association