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The Silk Road (Volume 15), edited by Daniel Waugh; 218 pages; free download (Annual journal of the Silkroad Foundation)

Volume 15 of the on-line journal The Silk Road covers a range of material and includes numerous photos, maps, drawings and other images. Articles also cover a range of subjects including ancient fortresses in Afghanistan's Wakhan region; caravanserais in the Mongol Golden Horde; and recent discoveries at a Turkic fortress in Kazakhstan. Other topics include a new analysis of the use of silver coins in Gaochang along the Northern Silk Road and articles about cross-cultural exchange: a ruler in Egypt who recognized his Central Asian heritage; items in museum collections connected with the “migration” of centaurs across Asia; connections involving Unified Silla Korea with the West; the deposit in a museum in the Urals of a relic from Timurid Samarkand; and the Chingissid legacy in post-Mongol East Asia. Photo essays cover Sasanian reliefs in Iran; the legacy of the Liao; and the importance of water across the Silk Roads. Finally, Volume 15 incude symposia reports and several book reviews and notices.

Volume 15 also contains a listing of the contents of the first fifteen issues of The Silk Road covering the period 2003 through 2017, an invaluable resource and especially valuable contribution for all those interested in scholarship on Central Asia and Mongolia, some of which is difficult to access and not always widely available.  

Volume 15 is freely available on line at: https://edspace.american.edu/silkroadjournal/wp-content/uploads/sites/984/2018/01/srjournal_v15.pdf>, or alternatively at: <http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/vol15/srjournal_v15.pdf>

Print copies, sent free of charge to academic libraries, should be in the mail next month. Back numbers are also available. Volume 15 is the last issue that is also being printed in hard copy; future issues will only be available as an open access on-line publication.    

This is the final volume The Silk Road edited by Daniel Waugh (now editor emeritus) at the University of Washington. Future volumes will be edited by Professor Justin Jacobs at American University in Washington, DC.  All submissions and correspondence regarding future volumes should be addressed to him at: <jjacobs@american.edu>

Finally, please note that past issues of The Silk Road are available at a newly created website (all new volumes will be posted only at this website):
<https://edspace.american.edu/silkroadjournal/>

Mongoliya by Guo Xuebo (author) and Bruce Humes (translator); part of "Kaleidoscope Series of China Ethnic Writers" published by China Translation and Publishing House

Set in twentyfirst-century Inner Mongolia, Mongoliya is a semi-autobiographical novel by Gua Xuebo, an ethnic Mongol from China. According to one review (Asia-Pacific Journal, January 31, 2018), "It comprises three distinct but intertwined narratives: a spiritual journey, in which the author — ostensibly the narrator — seeks his Shamanic roots, long obscured in post-1949, officially atheist China; vignettes from the Mongolian adventures of Henning Haslund-Christensen, born to a Danish missionary family in 1896 and real-life author of the anthropological masterpiece Men and Gods in Mongolia; and the tribulations of Teelee Yesu, a modern-day fictional Mongol herdsman, considered by many to be the village idiot, whose very survival is threatened by desertification and coal mine truckers running roughshod over his tiny plot of land".

The same review notes that "Very occasionally . . . a minority author manages to skirt the censors and turn the spotlight on burning issues," situating Guo Xuebo's novel among those books written by minority authors in China who creatively grapple with issues that are central not only to China but also to other parts of the world.

Further developing this theme, another reviewer notes that Mongoliya "treats comically two topics almost never mentioned in Chinese news reports or fiction: The exploitation of traditional Mongolian pasture lands by ruthless mining firms and the use of self immolation by China's ethnic minorities, to protest government policies aimed at acculturation".
 
Translator Bruce Humes has lived in Taipei, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kunming and Shenzhen.  He specializes in translating Chinese-language fiction by or about China's non-Hun peoples, especially those who speak Altaic languagues such as the reindeer-herding Evenki (Last Quarter of the Moon) and the Uyghur in Xinjiang (Confessions of a Jade Lord). 

Proceedings from 12th Annual International Mongolian Studies Conference, edited by Myagmaryn Saruul-Erdene, Sodnomyn Enkhtsetseg and Nyamkhuugiin Narangerel  (Mongolian Cultural Center/Embassy of Mongolia, 2018)

This very recent publication includes many (though not all) of the presentations given at a recent (February 9-10, 2018) conference on Mongolian Studies held in Washington, DC.  Organized by the Mongolian Cultural Center, the event was hosted by the Mongolian Embassy and included contributions from the Library of Congress, Mongolian-American Cultural Association (MACA), and Tashim Urtuu North American (TUNA), among others.

Topics covered include academic disciplines such as Archaeology, History and Philology and important themes such Inner Mongolia after World War II, national identity and Mongolian communities in the United States.  Individual contributions vary in length but at 340 pages this book covers a lot of ground. Friends, Fellows and supporters of ACMS are well represented in several articles, underscoring the positive role that ACMS plays in encouraging scholarship and supporting research on Mongolia.

Major articles include Kristen Pearson (University of Pennsylvania) on what the archeological record reveals about textiles; Anran Wang (Cornell University) on the Chinese Communist Party's approach to Eastern Inner Mongolia immediately after World War II; Dotno Dashdorj (University of Pennsylvania) on Land Reform in Inner Mongolia during the 1950s; Clyde Goulden (Drexel University) and Robert Macintosh (US National Park Service) on Lake Hovsgol; Amuguleng Wu (University of China/University of Pennsylvania) on the Qing Conquest of Jungar during 1755-1758, as recorded in the Manchu archives; Wei Chen (University of Pennsylvania) on the architecturial aspects of three Mongolian Lamaseries; Phlip Marzluf (Kansas State University) on writing by early female travelers on the Mongolian frontier; Amartuvshin Sukhee (Mongolian National University of Education) on Mongolian stereotypes in the American media; Joseph Cleveland (Indiana University) on Mongolian nationalism and national identity; and Karen Hollweg (Fulbright Specialist) on Herder Traditions and International Tourism.

In addition, the volume concludes with several chapters based on presentions at previous Mongolia studies conferences including Alicia Campi (Mongolia Society) on US-Mongolian relations; Petya Andreeva and Christopher Atwood on newly discovered rock drawings in Mongolia; and Simon Wickhamsmith (Rutgers University) on the influence of European Modernism on Natsagdorj, "Father of Modern Mongolian Literature".  
 

Language, Literacy, and Social Change in Mongolia: Traditionalist, Socialist, and Post-Socialist Identities (Contemporary Central Asia: Societies, Politics, and Cultures) by Phillip P. Marzluf; 234 pages; $95 (Lexington Books, 2018)

Language, Literacy, and Social Change in Mongolia is the first full-length treatment of literacy in Mongolian. Challenging readers’ assumptions about Central Asia and Mongolia, this book focuses on Mongolians’ experiences with reading and writing throughout the past 100 years. Literacy, as a powerful historical and social variable, shows readers how reading and writing have shaped the lives of Mongolians and, at the same time, how reading and writing have been transformed by historical, political, economic, and other social forces.

Mongolian literacy serves as an especially rich area of inquiry because of the dramatic political, economic, and social changes that occurred in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For the seventy years during which Mongolia was a part of the communist Soviet world, literacy played an important role in how Mongolians identified themselves, conceived of the past, and created a new social order. Literacy was also a part of the story of authoritarianism and state violence. It was used to express the authority of the communist Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, control the pastoral population, and suppress non-socialist beliefs and practices. Mongolians’ reading and writing opportunities and resources were tightly controlled, and the language policy of replacing the traditional Mongolian script with the Cyrillic alphabet immediately followed the violent repression of Buddhist leaders, government officials, and intellectuals.

Beginning with the 1990 Democratic Revolution, Mongolians have been thrust into free-market capitalism, privatization, globalization, and neoliberalism. In post-socialist Mongolia, literacy no longer serves as the center for Mongolian identity. Government subsidies to pastoral literacy resources have been slashed, and administrators now find themselves competing with other “developing countries” for educational funding. Due to the pressures caused by globalization, Mongolians have begun to talk about literacy and language in terms of crisis and anxiety. As global flows of English compete with new symbols from the distant past, Mongolians worry about the perceived lowering standards of Mongolian linguistic usage amid rapid economic changes. These worries also reveal themselves in official language policies and manifest themselves in the multiple languages and scripts that appear in the capital of Ulaanbaatar and other urban areas. 

Phillip P. Marzluf is associate professor in the English Department at Kansas State University, where he teaches classes on literacy, professional writing, pedagogy, and world literature.  A former ACMS Fellow, he also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia.
 

Ulaanbaatar Beyond Water and Grass: A Guide to the Capital of Mongolia by M.A. Aldrich; 328 pages; $39 (Hong University Press, 2018)

Ulaanbaatar Beyond Water and Grass is the first English language book that takes visitors to an in-depth exploration of the capital of Mongolia. In the first section, M. A. Aldrich paints a detailed portrait of the history, religion, and architecture of Ulaanbaatar with reference to how the city evolved from a monastic settlement to a communist-inspired capital and finally to a major city of free-wheeling capitalism and Tammany Hall politics. The second section offers the reader a tour of different sites within the city and beyond, bringing back to life the human dramas that have played themselves out on the stage of Ulaanbaatar.

At its best, Ulaanbaatar Beyond Water and Grass: A Guide to the Capital of Mongolia reveals much that remains hidden from the temporary visitor and even from the long-term resident. Writing in a quirky, idiosyncratic style, the author shares his appreciation and delight in this unique urban setting—indeed, in all things Mongolian.
 

M. A. Aldrich is a lawyer and author who has lived and worked in Asia for nearly thirty years. His previous books include The Search for a Vanishing Beijing: A Guide to China’s Capital Through the Ages and The Perfumed Palace: Islam’s Journey from Mecca to Peking. He has also written numerous articles on Chinese and Mongolian law and is currently writing a book about Lhasa.