Anatoli Ulyanov is a media researcher and documentary filmmaker examining propaganda, hate speech, and violence. With twenty years of professional experience—including as Head of Media at the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center and leading AI-driven content safety, antisemitism, and extremism prevention analysis for Google/YouTube platforms—he combines practitioner expertise with scholarly research. He collaborates with the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate and the California Civil Rights Department on hate-crime prevention, public engagement, and policy interventions.
EDUCATION

2024... — PhD Researcher, Department of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles / Los Angeles, CA
Dissertation: “Toxic Semiosis: How Language Makes—and Unmakes—Violence”

2006 — M.A. in Journalism, Taras Shevchenko National University / Kyiv, Ukraine. Thesis: “Blogging: Collective Media of The Future.”

2005 — B.A. in Journalism, Taras Shevchenko National University / Kyiv, Ukraine. Focus: New Digital Media.
Fellowships and Awards

Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship (2024, 2028).
Graduate Research Mentorship Award (GRM) (2025—26)

UCLA Initiative to Study Hate — Research Innovation Fund (2025)

Bluma Appel Research Grant (2025).
Harry and Yvonne Lenart Fellowship (2025).
Graduate Summer Research Mentorship (GSRM) (2025).
CERS Research Fellowship (2025).

CERS Conference Grant (2025).
ASEEES Convention Grant (2025).
Research Interests

Political Communication: propaganda, hate speech, and political violence; media effects and persuasion; critical discourse and semiotic analysis.

Media & Conflict: wartime communication; enemy construction; dehumanization and othering in digital and broadcast media.

Documentary Filmmaking: visual methods and narrative strategies for social impact; multimodal ethnography; public engagement and community-based media production.

>>> VISUAL PROJECTS
UNHATE!
Documentary Film Project
An ethnographic film examining how people learn, sustain, and overcome hate. Featuring interviews with affected communities, scholars, and individuals navigating enmity and polarization, the project combines visual anthropology with public scholarship to translate field research into accessible storytelling for educational and community settings.

Supported by the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate and the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies.

Work-in-Progress

TOXIC LEXICON (FROM WAR TO PEACE)
How Language Makes—and Unmakes—Violence
Examines how language, images, and narratives construct enemies and legitimize violence in Russian-Ukrainian wartime discourse. Combines semiotic and discourse analysis, ethnographic fieldwork, and documentary filmmaking to develop frameworks for detecting hate speech patterns and designing conflict prevention interventions.


Supported by the GRM/GSRM Award, Lenart Fellowship, and the CERS Research Fellowship.
INTERDISCIPLINARY TRAINING

Linguistic Anthropology, UCLA (2025)
Semiotic analysis and language ideologies.

History and Policy Research, Luskin Center, UCLA (2025)
Archival research and policy analysis methods.

Urban Humanities Institute, UCLA CityLAB (2025)
Public scholarship and community-engaged research.
Research Experience

2025 — Researcher, UCLA Initiative to Study Hate with the California State Commission on Hate and Civil Rights Department.
Analyzed offender typologies, motivations, and behavioral patterns; developed policy recommendations and a hate crime coding system for law enforcement and state agencies. Supervised by David N. Myers and David A. Kalkstein. 2024 — Researcher (GSR), UCLA Department of History.
Conducted archival research on Soviet-era media, the Holocaust, and the Volhynia massacre declassified records; built/led a regional research network, supporting digitization efforts under wartime constraints. Supervised by Jared McBride. 2024 — Researcher (GSR), UCLA Slavic Department.
Investigated gendered labor dynamics in Russian and Soviet cinema; developed a cross-temporal archival database. Supervised by Lilya Kaganovsky.
Media EXPERIENCE

2021–22 — Head of Media, Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, Kyiv . Directed international initiatives on hate, trauma, and memory politics; created public-facing, multilingual content and documentaries; developed media strategies to foster dialogue around contested pasts.

2022–24 — Media Analyst and Team Leader, Productive Playhouse, Los Angeles . Co-led 365-person multilingual team analyzing antisemitism, hate speech, and extremist content for Google platforms; developed cross-linguistic detection strategies for covert propaganda; identified and disrupted coordinated extremist networks; contributed to AI training protocols for YouTube safety systems.
2022–24 — Producer, Dose of Society, Los Angeles . Conducted field interviews and produced video narratives designed to overcome social polarization, foster inclusion, and build caring communities for a platform with over 2M followers and partnerships with Universal and Greenpeace.
2000–Present — DADAKINDER, Looo.ch, SHO, PROZA, X3M. Filmed award-winning documentaries on marginalized communities and cultural resistance; developed storytelling strategies reaching 50K+ combined followers; founded and edited major cultural media platforms in Ukraine.
DOCUMENTARY FILMS

Violence, Ideology, Extremism:

We Kill Them Out Of Love (2024, 4 min.) Archival documentary on genocidal rhetoric in Russian state media.
Media Manifesto (2021, 5 min.) Affective video montage for the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center.
Elliot Rodger Here (2014, 20 min.) On masculinity and violence through digital traces of the Isla Vista killings.
My New Orthodox Video (2013, 19 min.) On nationalism, queerness, and self-mythology in post-Soviet digital space.
Marginalized Communities & Social Justice:

My First Memory of Color (2018, 9 min.) On racial identity formation through personal narratives.
Homeless Angels (2017, 12 min.) Portrait of unhoused lives in Los Angeles.
Queerland (2016–2018, 21 min.): Church Of Fun (5 min.), Fickle Wish (10 min.), In the Womb of a Dragon (6 min.) — Verité portraits of DIY queer cultural spaces.
American Revolution (2016–2021, 31 min.): I Am Somebody (4 min.) I Am Revolutionary (7 min.), Women’s March (2 min.), George Floyd Rebellion (4 min.), American Democratic Regime (22 min.), Blacklight (2 min.), Women’s Strike (2 min.) — Political ethnography of U.S. protest movements.
Russian American (2012–2015, 50 min.): Wonderland (25 min.), Dima (8 min.), Dunsama (10 min.), Angel (7 min.) — Intimate portraits of post-Soviet diaspora life in NY and LA.
Memory, Trauma & Historical Violence:
Because We Are Men Not Beasts (2021, 9 min.) Tribute to Thomas Sankara and the anti-colonial struggle.
Black Man In A Red Suit (2021, 113 min.) On Black representation in Soviet cinema.
Other (2023, 2 min.) Reframes Soviet propaganda through a postcolonial lens.

Environmental Storytelling:
Biophilia (2025, 6 min.) Archival short on multispecies entanglement.
Conferences

2025

Say Palyanytsia: Sound, Identity, and Enemy-Making in the Russo-Ukrainian War. SEEELC Linguistic Festival, UCLA.

What Can We Learn from Fascists...? Panel Organizer, ASEEES Convention, Washington, D.C.

Narrative Power: Public Space as a Site of Dialogue. Public Talk and Panel, Wende Museum, Los Angeles, California.

Living Things: Identity Cages, Commodified Selves, and the Politics of Becoming-With . Panel, Human Rights Framework/Global Solidarities Conference, UC Davis
Total Kiss: Romantic Biophilia, Relational Ontology, and the Ecological Imagination… CGS/GSC Colloquium, Stanford University
Biophilia . Ecofilm Screening: 1) at the Multispecies Salon, UCLA; 2) at the Queer Kinship Network International Conference, University of Oxford.
New Materialisms . Presentation, Cybercene Lab, UCLA
2024
Critical Perspectives on Emerging Forms of Global Solidarities. Panel, Institute for Criminological and Sociological Research, Belgrade, Serbia
2023

New East Cinema Symposium . Roundtable, Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Pittsburgh
War in Ukraine. Peace Advocacy . Panel, 16BEAVER, New York.
2022
Community Fundraiser on Conflict Resolution Panel , Los Angeles, CA
Beneath The Surface with Suzi Weissman . KRFL Radio, Los Angeles. Interview on marginalization in Eastern Ukraine.
2014
Against Censorship: Independent Media in Authoritarian Contexts . Public talk, Bowdoin College, Maine
Language and Violence: Nationalism and Identity in Post-Maidan Ukraine . Panel, Ukrainian Writers’ Forum, Donetsk
2009
Henry Miller vs the National Expert Commission on Public Morality . Intervention performance, Ukrainian Parliament, Kyiv
Publications

2025: How a Channel Islands Expedition Brought Environmental Humanities Vividly To Life, UCLA News.
On multispecies kinship, green pedagogy, and eco-research.
2024: To Blow (Up) the Mausoleum, Daraja Press.
On post-Soviet political mythology and affective memory.
2022: The Superfluous People Of Eastern Ukraine, Die Überflüssigen Menschen Aus Der Ostukraine, LeftEast / Widerspruch.
On marginalization, displacement, and identity in war-torn regions.
2020: Belarus Streikt – Brief An Die Arbeiter*Innen, Transitory White.
Open letter in solidarity with striking workers in Belarus.

>>> TEXT ARCHIVE
Books and Multimedia

2012 — Fuhrer of God (Looo.ch, New York)
Explores political theology and patriarchal violence through experimental critical theory.
2012 — Queer Textbooks Series (Looo.ch, New York)
Satirical texts critiquing homophobia, censorship, and moral panic in Russia and Ukraine.
2007 — Slam! Theory and Practice of Poetic Revolution (Chili, Kyiv)
Manifesto and analysis of the spoken word movement in the post-Soviet literary scene.
Memberships

Populism Specialist Group, Political Studies Association (UK)

Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES)
Modern Language Association (MLA)
Languages

Russian: Native proficiency

Ukrainian: Native proficiency

English: Full professional proficiency
ULYANOV@UCLA.EDU
X — IG — TG — FB