Anatoli Ulyanov

University of California, Los Angeles
Dept. of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures
ulyanov@UCLA.eDU / orcid: 0009-0006-6831-8885

Anatoli Ulyanov is a media researcher and documentary filmmaker whose work bridges Media Studies, Environmental Humanities, and post-Soviet cultural analysis. Drawing on visual anthropology, archival research, and critical discourse analysis, he explores how narratives construct identity, mediate power, and sustain colonial and ecological legacies across regional and transnational contexts. His current research explores hate prevention, emancipatory imaginaries, and multispecies relations through the lenses of new materialisms, ecofeminism, and postcolonial critique.

EDUCATION

2024 — Ph.D. Fellow, Dept. of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures,
University of California / Los Angeles, CA

2006 — M.A. Journalism, Taras Shevchenko National University / Kyiv, Ukraine

2005 — B.A. Journalism, Taras Shevchenko National University / Kyiv, Ukraine

Fellowships AND AWARDS

2024 — Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship — $30,000

UCLA’s premier doctoral fellowship for underrepresented scholars. Supports research committed to public engagement, critical inquiry, and transformative humanities.

2025–2026 — Graduate Research Mentorship (GRM) Program — $30,000

Highly competitive award supporting original, field-defining scholarship and bold conceptual research under faculty guidance.

2025 — Harry and Yvonne Lenart Graduate Travel Fellowship — $8,000

Funds international archival and ethnographic research in support of fieldwork.

2025 — Graduate Summer Research Mentorship (GSRM) Program — $6,000

Summer fellowship supporting immersive research with faculty mentors.

2025 — CERS Pre-Dissertation Research Fellowship — $5,000

Awarded for pre-dissertation research abroad in European area studies.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Media and Discourse Studies: Propaganda, political semiotics, digital narratives, affective communication, and public messaging.

Identity, Hate, and Reconciliation Studies: Self-perception and social belonging; mechanisms of polarization, othering, and dehumanization; inclusion and diversity; trauma and conflict resolution.

Environmental Humanities & Political Ecology: New materialisms, multispecies relations, ecocriticism and eco-cinema; postcolonial and queer ecologies; romantic biophilia; ethics of love, kinship, and care.

Visual Anthropology & Documentary Film: Archival research, sensory ethnography, audiovisual testimony, and cross-modal approaches to fieldwork and public-facing storytelling.

Post-Soviet, Slavic, and Transcultural Studies: Holocaust studies, memory politics, Russian imperialism, Ukrainian nationalism; Soviet legacy and post-Soviet transitions.

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

2025 — Doctoral Researcher (GSR)

UCLA Initiative to Study Hate, in partnership with the California Commission on the State of Hate and the California Civil Rights Department. Supervised by Distinguished Professor David N. Myers and David A. Kalkstein.

• Conducted interdisciplinary research on hate crime and hate offenders, with a focus on motivational frameworks and behavioral patterns.

• Analyzed demographic trends, offender typologies, and recidivism data to identify systemic patterns.

• Contributed to the design of preventive frameworks aimed at reducing the recurrence of hate-based violence.

• Findings will inform a legislative report for California state officials, policymakers, and community leaders.

2024 — Doctoral Researcher (GSR) 

Department of History, UCLA — Supervised by Prof. Jared McBride  

• Conducted archival research on Soviet-era newspapers, Holocaust records, and criminal cases concerning the Volhynia massacre.  

• Built and coordinated a regional network of researchers and archivists working under wartime conditions to support primary source acquisition.  

• Produced analytical reports, contextualizing materials through historical, linguistic, and cultural analysis.

• Contributed to the digitization and transfer of rare archival collections.

2024 — Doctoral Researcher (GSR) 

Department of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Languages & Cultures, UCLA — Supervised by Prof. Lilya Kaganovsky  

• Researched Russian Imperial and Soviet cinema, focusing on women’s labor and representation in the film industry.  

• Built and maintained a structured database for film and archival materials to support cross-temporal analysis.  

• Developed a comprehensive annotated bibliography to support the research.

CRITICAL MEDIA PRACTICE

2021–2022 — Head of Media  

Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, Kyiv, Ukraine

• Led the development of international media projects engaging with suppressed histories, historical trauma, and the politics of memory.  

• Oversaw a cross-functional team producing multilingual public-facing content, educational materials, and documentary narratives.  

• Directed media strategies that fostered critical engagement with contested pasts and facilitated cross-cultural dialogue.  

2022–2024 — Field Interviewer and Producer  

Dose of Society / Los Angeles, CA

• Produced short-form video narratives amplifying marginalized voices and documenting lived experiences of identity, care, and exclusion.  

• Conducted on-the-ground field interviews on a large-scale public media platform (2M+ followers).  

• Developed visual storytelling grounded in relational ethnographic methods.

2022–2024 — Media Analysis and Platform Research  

Productive Playhouse (Google contractor) / Los Angeles, CA  

• Co-led a 365-person team analyzing antisemitism, hate speech, and extremist narratives across digital ecosystems.  

• Applied discourse analysis, semiotics, and cross-linguistic strategies to identify covert propaganda and platform manipulation.  

• Contributed to the development of review protocols and metadata frameworks for detecting global hate-based discourse.

2000–Present — Independent Media and Critical Publishing  

Platforms include DADAKINDER, Looo.ch, SHO, PROZA, and X3M  

• Produced award-winning documentaries centering on marginalized communities and contested histories.  

• Designed digital storytelling and editorial strategies that engaged over 50,000 followers across social platforms.  

• Founded and led independent publishing initiatives amplifying post-Soviet cultural production, including Ukraine’s first major online literary portal, and edited bilingual media across print and digital formats.

DOCUMENTARY AND VISUAL PROJECTS

A complete archive is available at dadakinder.com

2025 — “Biophilia” (Archival Ecofilm, 6 min.). An experimental short grounded in ecofeminist and new materialist thought, exploring multispecies entanglements and interdependence. Premiered at UCLA’s Multispecies Salon.

2021 — “I Am Somebody” (Archival Documentary, 4 min.). A montage-based meditation on dignity, visibility, and subjectivity.

2020 — “Because We Are Men Not Beasts” (Archival Documentary, 9 min.). Tribute to Thomas Sankara, focusing on anti-colonial resistance through archival image politics.

2020 — “I Am Revolutionary” (Archival Documentary, 7 min.). Examines Fred Hampton’s political imaginary through decolonial remix and revolutionary speech.

2019 — Queer Underground (Documentary Series): “Church Of Fun” (5 min.), “Fickle Wish” (10 min.), “In the Womb of a Dragon” (6 min.). Verité ethnographic portraits of queer communities in Los Angeles, capturing affect, ritual, and resistance in DIY cultural spaces.

2018 — “Black Man In A Red Suit” (Archival Documentary Series, 113 min.). Investigates Black representation in Soviet visual culture through reassembled media archives and post-Soviet memory politics.

2018 — “My First Memory of Color” (Documentary, 9 min.). Explores racial identity formation through personal narrative.

2017 — “Homeless Angels” (Documentary, 12 min.). A lyrical portrait of unhoused residents in MacArthur Park, Los Angeles, capturing resilience and human dignity amid urban precarity.

2016 — American Revolution (Verité Documentary Series): “Women’s March” (2 min.), “George Floyd Rebellion” (4 min.), “American Democratic Regime” (22 min.), Blacklight (2 min.), Women’s Strike (2 min.). Experimental political ethnography of protest movements in the U.S. during the Trump 1st presidency.

2015 — Russian American: (Documentary): Wonderland (25 min.), Dima (8 min.), Dunsama (10 min.), Angel (7 min.). Intimate documentary portraits of post-Soviet diaspora life in New York City, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles.

2014 — “Elliot Rodger Here” (Archival Documentary, 20 min.). Analyzes masculinity, media, and violence through recontextualized digital traces of the Isla Vista killings.

2013 — “My New Orthodox Video” (Archival Documentary, 19 min.). Examines post-Soviet nationalism and self-mythology through the video diaries of Sergey Astakhov.

CONFERENCES, PRESENTATIONS, AND PANELS

2025 — “Living Things: Identity Cages, Commodified Selves, and the Politics of Becoming-With.” The Human Rights Framework and Global Solidarities Conference, UC Davis.

2025 — Biophilia. Presentation. Included within Professor Vetri Nathan’s keynote speech “On the Epistemic Humility of Multispecies Kinship: Cultivating Attentiveness, Care and Wellbeing” at the Second Queer Kinship Network International Conference, University of Oxford.

2025 — “Total Kiss: Romantic Biophilia, Relational Ontology, and the Ecological Imagination in Karel Hynek Mácha’s Máj (1836).” CGS (GSC) Colloquium at the Stanford University.

2025 — Biophilia (Ecofilm). Premiered at the Multispecies Salon, Royce Hall, UCLA.  Presented as part of the Public and Environmental Humanities program.

2025 — New Materialisms: Translating Theory into Visual Practice. Cybercene Lab, Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies, UCLA.

2024 — Critical Perspectives on Emerging Forms of Global Solidarities. Institute for Criminological and Sociological Research, Belgrade, Serbia.

2023 — New East Cinema Symposium. Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Pittsburgh

2023 — War in Ukraine. Peace Advocacy. Public and academic panel at 16BEAVER, New York.

2022 — Panel and Community Fundraiser on Conflict Resolution. Los Angeles, CA

2022 — Beneath The Surface. KRFL Radio, Los Angeles. Discussion on the marginalization and erasure of “superfluous people” in Eastern Ukraine.

2014 — Looo.ch vs. Censorship: Independent Publishing in Authoritarian Contexts. Artist talk at Bowdoin College, Maine.

2014 — Language and Violence: Nationalism and Identity in Post-Maidan Ukraine. 1st Ukrainian Writers’ Forum, Donetsk.

2009 — “Henry Miller” Action. Performative intervention at the National Expert Commission on the Protection of Public Morality panel, Ukrainian Parliament (Rada), Kyiv.

PUBLICATIONS  

A full archive of Russian-language texts is available at dadakinder.com   

2025 — “How a Channel Islands Expedition Brought Environmental Humanities Vividly To Life,” UCLA College News / ELTS / Slavic / Division of Humanities.  

A Ph.D. researcher reflects on love, academia, and multispecies kinship.

2024 — “To Blow (Up) the Mausoleum,” Daraja Press  

A reflection on post-Soviet political mythology, cultural memory, and the humanization of revolutionary icons.

2022— “The Superfluous People Of Eastern Ukraine,” LeftEast

“Die Überflüssigen Menschen Aus Der Ostukraine,”  Widerspruch

A reflection on marginalization, war, and identity in post-Soviet space.

2020 — “Belarus Streikt – Brief An Die Arbeiter*Innen,” Transitory White  

Open letter in solidarity with striking workers during the Belarus protests.

SELECTED BOOKS & MULTIMEDIA PUBLICATIONS

2012 — Fuhrer of God (Digital publication, Looo.ch, New York). Experimental philosophical text exploring political theology, media, and messianic culture.

2012 — Homosexuality for Kids (Digital publication, Looo.ch, New York). Satirical children's book critiquing censorship, queerphobia, and authoritarian morality campaigns.

2007 — Slam! Theory and Practice of Poetic Revolution (Paperback, Chili Publishing, Kyiv). Printed manifesto and cultural analysis of the spoken word movement in post-Soviet literary scenes.

SELECTED INTERVIEWS & MEDIA FEATURES

Feature: “Censored After Satirizing Anti-Gay Laws,” Gawker 

Feature: “Ukrainische Unmoral,” Vice / Motherboard 

Feature: “Documenting Homelessness,” Knife Media  

Feature: “Jazz Funeral in New Orleans,” ViaNolaVie

Coverage: “My First Memory of Color,” Fotodemic  

Feature: “Lesbianism and War Games,” Global Voices  

Interview: “Sovok Is a Part of Us,” Novoye Vremya  

Interview: “See You on the Moon,” Detector.Media

Report: “Censor Over Satirical Gayart PDF File,” Animal  

Report: “Russians Censor Website,” Techdirt  

Feature: “The Captors of the World,” Bird in Flight   

Interview: “Shocker Man. Anatoli Ulyanov,” Vlashchenko  

Interview: “Impossible Interview from Ukraine,” LeftEast

Interview: “On Censorship, Morality, and Resistance,” Art Ukraine

Membership

2025 — The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Pittsburgh, PA
2025 — Modern Language Association of America (MLA), New York City, NY
2024 — Populism Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association, London, UK
2024 — Black Sheep Scholars Association, International

Languages

Russian — Native proficiency

Ukrainian — Native proficiency

English — Full professional proficiency