MONGOLIA SOCIETY ANNUAL MEETING, CONFERENCE IN DENVER (March 23, 2019)

The Mongolia Society held its 2019 Annual Meeting at the University of Colorado - Denver Campus on Saturday, March 23. At the start of the meeting former US Ambassador to Mongolia Pamela Slutz was announced as the new Mongolia Society President, succeeding Alicia Campi. Opening remarks were provided by Ambassador Otgonbayar; as Honorary Consul for Mongolia in Denver, Jim Wagenlander also welcomed participants to the meeting.

The remainder of the day was devoted to an education roundtable as well as two panel presentations on topics that will be of interest to ACMS members:

MONGOLIAN LIFESTYLE AND BUSINES
Making a Concrete Argument: Sidewalks and the Politics of Automobility in Ulaanbaatar -- Joey Cleveland (Indiana University)
Recent Developments in US-Mongolian Economic Relations -- Dr. Alicia Campi (Johns Hopkins and Foreign Service Institute)
Mongolia's Eyes: Gobi 2018 -- Dr. Susan C. Benes (Orbis Flying Eye Hospital)

LITERATURE AND RELIGION
Mongolia Buddhist Art and the Issues of Cultural Affiliations -- Uranchimeg Tsultemin (University of Iceland)
Buddhism from Mongolia: Stories of Origin, Rivalry and Negotiation from the Buryat Chronicles -- Melissa Chakars (St. Joseph University)
Nucleus of Mongolian Folkore -- Kishigsuren Dorj (Independent Scholar)
D. Natsagdorj's 'From Ulaanbaatar to Berlin': Travel Writing and Ideas about National Identity -- Phillip Marzluf (Kansas State University)

EDUCATION ROUNDTABLE: Jonathan Addleton (Mercer University); Jim Wagenlander (Honorary Mongolian Consul in Denver); Myrna Ann Adkins (Denver Sister Cities Mongolian Committee); Walt Jenkins (Zorigt Foundation); Mrs. Duren Walters (Mongolian School of Colorado) 

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ANNUAL FUND RAISER SUPPORTING MONGOLIA SCHOOL IN WASHINGTON, DC AREA (APRIL 7, 2019)

Alicia Campi from the Mongolia Society reminds "Friends of Mongolia" in the Washington, DC area that the Mongolia School Annual Fund Raiser will be held on the evening of April 7, 2019, beginning at 6 PM and continuing until 11 PM. Costs per ticket is $50. The venue this year is at the Harvest Moon Restaurant (7260 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA 22042. For more information, call the Mongolia School (703-505-8894) or contact Alicia Campi directly (monsocacampi@gmail.com)

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FIRST HORSEHEAD FIDDLE FESTIVAL IN US -- MARCH 9-10, 2019

Peter Marsh (the first ACMS Resident Director in Mongolia) recently sent this description of a festival involving Mongolia's national musical instrument hosted by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor:

Those in the broader Mongolian Studies community may have encountered recent news stories about the phenomenon of the HU band from Mongolia. YouTube videos featuring the band members playing heavy metal music on two-string horsehead fiddles on the Mongolian steppe have garnered millions of views, bringing a new global exposure to this folk music instrument from Mongolia and Inner Mongolia (China). This sudden surge of popularity aside, interest in the horsehead fiddle has been growing in the US and elswhere for the past few decades.

To mark this progress, fiddle enthusiasts in the US organized the First Horsehead Fiddle Festival in the United States at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on March 9-10, 2019. The event included academic panels, discussion sections, concerts and workshops, and a competition for amateur performers. Participants came from the US, Europe and Asia and included a large contingent of performers, scholars, instrument makers and ensemble leaders from Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. Most of the seasoned professionals at the event were born and raised in Mongolia but most of the amateur performers were first and second generation Mongolian-Americans, many of whom have had little contact with Mongolia.

In panel disussions, questions about how musical tradition is changing as it and its practioners move further away from the Mongolian homeland were fervently debated. Cultural leaders in these nations have long encouraged the global dissemination of Mongolian music and culture to new audiences in North America and Europe. Now that this is happening, we see them beginning to struggle with and celebrate the implications of this success.

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GOBI FRAMEWORK PROJECT LAUNCHES PROJECT NEWSLETTER

The Gobi Framework Project, the subject of a recent ACMS Lecture in Ulaanbaatar, was launched in September 2018, followed by a stakeholder's event in Terelj National Park and a month-long research trip to Khan Bogd Soum in South Gobi. Upcoming events include another project launch at the University of Central Asia in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) in April. For more details, read the initial March issue of the Gobi Framework Project Newsletter here.

 

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SMART AIR MONGOLIA ANNOUNCES PRODUCT NEWSLETTER

ACMS Members living in Ulaanbaatar may be interested in the Smart Air Mongolia newsletter, especially during winter months. Among other things, it includes (1) an analysis of 2018-2019 winter air pollution levels; (2) helpful tips about the effectiveness of air purifiers, ionizers and plants; and (3) data on the most polluted times of day in Ulaanbaatar. For more details, access the latest issue of the newsletter here.

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WORLD BANK ANNOUNCES VISUAL ARTS EXHIBITION ON MONGOLIA: "THE ART OF INNOVATION" (MAY 2019)

The World Bank Group Art Program will host a visual arts exhibit on Mongolia in Washington, DC, with the opening reception tentatively scheduled for 5:30 - 7:30 PM on May 16. The exhibition is meant to highlight the importance of Innovation and Mongolia's Economic Competitiveness, as well as showcase What it Means to be Mongolian in the 21st century.

The exhibit as well as the opening reception will take place in the World Bank Main Atrium (1818 H. Street, NW, Washington,DC). An RSVP is required; those interested in attending should contact Assistant Curator Juliana Biondo at the following e-mail address: artprogram@worldbank.org

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CENTRAL EURASIA STUDIES SOCIETY ANNOUNCES ANNUAL CONFERENCE FOR CENTRAL EURASIAN SCHOLARS (OCTOBER 2019)

The Central Eurasia Studies Society announced that its annual meeting will be held at George Washington University in Washington, DC from October 10-13, 2019. The annual conference regularly features up to 70 panels and attracts approximately 300 scholars from around the world.

Calls for proposals are open through March 21, 2019. A call for photos as part of the first-ever photo contest associated with the conference continues through May 31, 2019. Registration for the conference will open in May 2019 and on on-line version of the program will be available from July 2019.

More information on this conference is available at the Central Eurasia Studies Society website here

HOLLYWOOD IN MONGOLIA FESTIVAL FOR FILMMAKERS IN ULAANBAATAR (MAY 2019)

The Mongolian press agency Montsame has announced the first "Hollywood in Mongolia" festival for filmmakers, to be held in Ulaanbaatar during May 1-7, 2019. The festival is meant to provide a learning experience "from world-class experts, initiating collaboration between Mongolian and Hollywood artists and organizing capacity bulding programs for national filmmakers".  It is also mean to "establish a foundation for filming Hollywood films in Mongolia".

According to festival organizers, guest speakers will include Acting Coach Ivana Chubbuck, producer Tom Coddington, director David Petrarca, actor and producer Rudy Youngblood, juries from the Cannes and Berlin International Film Festivals and others. The program will include discussions, master classes and meetings with the public. The idea is to arrange a similar festival in Mongolia every two years.
 

Elizabeth Endicott, Mongolia, 1978-2017: Memoirs of a Part-Time Mongolist; 408 pages; ($35 Hardback if ordered directly from the publisher); (Shires Press, 2019)

Elizabeth (Tina) Endicott first visited Mongolia in 1978, spending the next four decades documenting the Mongolian way of life through photographs, books and essays. Her first book Mongolian Rule in China (Harvard University Press) examined how a thirteenth century nomadic people established and ruled an empire that included its huge neighbor to the south. Her more recent research resulted in two other books on Mongolia and has centered on twentieth century Russo-Mongolian trade relations as well as modern day land use in Mongolia. 

This fascinating memoir is based on Endicott's fourteen visits to Mongolia, beginning in 1978 and continuing through 2017, years in which Mongolia witnessed massive and unprecedented change. Moving beyond the academic to the personal, she provides a unique perspective based on her own observations, analysis and experiences. The book also includes photographs that track many of these changes over time. Above all, Endicott's appreciation for Mongolia's culture, history and way of life is apparent on every page.

Elizabeth Endicott is Professor Emerita of History at Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT. A long-time supporter of ACMS, she has also served as Secretary on the ACMS Executive Board

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Alicia Campi, Mongolia's Foreign Policy: Navigating a Changing World; 349 pages; ($42.50 Hardback); (Lynne Reiner, 2019)

A long-time observer (and at times participant) in Mongolian affairs, Alicia Campi's new book will be welcomed by those who have long awaited a comprehensive overview and analysis of Mongolian foreign policy -- including economic poilcy -- since abandoning Soviet-style socialism in 1990 and moving toward a market-based parliamentary democracy.

Campi herself first visited Mongolia in 1975, later participating in discussions in Tokyo during 1985-1986 that eventually led to the establishment of diplomatic ties between the US and Mongolia in 1987. Posted in Ulaanbaatar as a US diplomat in 1990, she witnessed the final months of peaceful street demonstrations that placed the country on the path toward democracy. She has followed the ups and downs of political, economic and social developments in Mongolia ever since, visiting Mongolia on multiple occasions over the last three decades.

Relations between the United States and Mongolia are part of the story that Campi presents in this book and her narrative makes good use of the oral histories of several former US diplomats including US Ambassadors to Mongolia that are publicly available in the Library of Congress. But she goes much further, including as well a detailed analysis of Mongolia's foreign relations with China, Russia and a number of "Third Neighbors," presenting the latter as a particularly intriguing aspect of Mongolia's post-Soviet foreign approach.

Her inclusion of economic poilcy as part of Mongolia's engagement with the rest of the world is also welcome, resulting in commentary that at times also delves into domestic concerns, especially when looking at important issues such as mineral development, resource nationalism, energy policy and regional integration. In addition, her detailed chapter on "Soft Power" provides a comprehensive description of Mongolian efforts to shape a "Mongolian brand" on the world stage.

Alicia Campi is President Emeritus of the Mongolia Society. A lecturer on North East Asia at the Foreign Service Institute, she is also a Research Fellow in the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (USAID) and Adjunct Professor involved in SAIS's Asia Programs. 

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Esther Jacobson-Tepfer, The Life of Two Valleys in the Bronze Age: Rock Art in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia; 329 pages; ($?? Hardback); Luminare Press, 2019)

This well written and wonderfully illustrated book provides a useful addition to the continued documentation and analysis of Bronze Age rock art in Mongolia. Numerous maps, illustrations and color photographs, combined with a text that is both evocative and informative, combine to give readers an intriguing perspective on one of the most visible and enduring aspects of Mongolia's historical and cultural landscape.

As the book notes, "The rock art of northwestern Mongolia preserves vital documentation of prehistoric life in its transition from a hunting-foraging economy to pastoralism and finally, with the adoption of horse riding, to full mounted nomadism. This pictorial record is most abundant within two long river valleys: those of Tsagaan Gol and Baga Oigor Gold. Their location in the high Altai mountains marks the nexus between North and Central Asia, taiga and steppe, and the center of fundamental economic and social changes from the end of the Ice Age through the Bronze and early Iron Ages". 

Among the many interesting comments is Jacobson-Tepfer's observation on what is "not said": "The subject of violent conflict is avoided, as is any indication of death or dying of either men or animals". As this example suggests, her interest goes beyond describing what she has observed in western Mongolia over multiple visits beginning in the 1990s; rather, the central intent of this study is "to seek out the ancient life of the valleys, to recreate the way they were lived and understood in a remote past". 

Esther Jacobson-Tepfer is Kerns Professor Emeritus in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Oregon. After receiving her doctorate in Chinese art history from the University of Chicago she expanded her research to the art and archaeology of North Asia's nomadic world. Jacobson-Tepfer has spent more than twenty field seasons in the Altai Mountains of Russia and Mongolia, recording and mapping rock art and surface monuments from the Bronze and Iron Ages. 

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Prajakti Kalra, The Silk Road and the Political Economy of the Mongol Empire; 163 pages; ($138 Hardback); (Routledge, 2018)

According to Prajakti Kalra, "The Eurasian region and the Silk Road today occupy much of the discourse on globalisation, international and regional cooperation and world trade". She goes on to note that "the politics of today which engages with the past continues to be colored by misunderstandings and misrepresentations driven by modern frameworks and principles that do not necessarily reflect either the region or the individual actors. This book attempts to mitigate these distortions and takes a historical approach to inform present-day discourses on Eurasia as a consequence of Mongolian governance".

Individual chapters cover such topics as "The Rise of Chinggis Khan," "Institutional Framework of Mongol Eurasia"; "The Place of Religion in Mongol Eurasia"; "Mongol Cities of Eurasia;" "Trade and Economic Relations in Mongol Eurasia;" and "Echoes of the Past in Present Day Eurasia". Based on Kalra's comprehensive analysis, this book "demonstrates that the Mongol Empire anticipated many of the networks and connections which exist in the region at present".
 
Prajatkti Kalra is a Research Fellow at the Central Asia Forum, Jesus College, University of Cambridge
 

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Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko, Enlightenment and the Gasping City: Mongolian Buddhism at a Time of Environmental Disarray;  265 pages ($95 Hardback; $26.95 Paperback); (Cornell University Press, 2019)

According to pre-release material provided by Cornell University Press, "With air pollution now intimately affecting every resident of Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko seeks to understand how, as a physical constant throughout the winter months, the murky and obscuring nature of air pollution has become an active part of Mongolian religious and ritual life.

Enlightenment and the Gasping City identifies air pollution as a boundary between the physical and the immaterial, showing how air pollution impresses itself on the urban environment as stagnation and blur. She explores how air pollution and related phenomena exist in dynamic tension with Buddhist ideas and practices concerning purification, revitalisation and enlightenment. By focusing on light, its intersections and its oppositions, she illuminates Buddhist practices and beliefs as they interact with the pressing urban issues of air pollution, post-socialist economic vacillations, urban development, nationalism, and climate change.

Early comment has been positive, with Johann Elverskog (Southern Methodist University) describing it as "the best book I have read on the revival of Buddhism -- or even more broadly -- of religion in contemporary Mongolia" and Martin Mills (University of Aberdeen) stating that the author "successfully captures core aspects of religious life in Mongolia at a key stage in its post-communist transition".

Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko is a Teaching Fellow at New York University, Shanghai, and an Associate at the Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology.

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Thomas T. Allsen, The Steppe and the Sea: Pearls in the Mongol Empire; 240 pages ($34 Hardback); (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019)

As advance publication material describes it, "Pearls, valued for aesthetic, economic, religious and political reasons, were the ultimate luxury good of the Middle Ages, and the Chingissid imperium, the largest contiguous land empire in history, was their unmatched collector, promoter and conveyer."

Against this backdrop, the book looks at the importance of pearls as both a luxury good and as a political investment in the Mongolian Empire, beginning with its establishment in 1206 and continuing through its expansion, division and ultimate decline in 1370. Unusually, it also tracks the cultural and commercial interactions between the "northern steppes" and the "southern seas".

Pearls are at the center of this narrative, with Allsen showing "how the very act of forming such a vast nomadic empire required the massive accumulation, management and movement of prestige goods and how this process brought into being new regimes of consumption on a continental scale". Allsen further suggests that "overland and seaborne trade flourished simultaneously, forming a dynamic exchange system that moved conmodities from east to west and north to south, including an enormous quantity of pearls".

According to J.J.L. Gommans (University of London), Allsen's focus on pearls "offers new insights into the wider socioeconomic and cultural history of the Mongol Empire." He further describes this book as "An extremely rich study of the process of southernization and the interaction between the maritime and the continental trade".

The late Thomas Allsen was Professor Emeritus of the College of New Jersey and wrote several books including Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles and Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia. He is also author of The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History, also available from University of Pennsylvania Press.

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Matthew W. King, Ocean of Milk, Ocean of Blood: A Mongolian Monk in the Ruins of the Qing Empire; 304 pages ($65 Hardback): (Columbia University Press, 2019)

Against the backdrop of the fall of the Qing Empire involving upheaval and change in Mongolia, monks there faced "a chaotic and increasingly uncertain world". This book details the story of one of those monks who sought to "defend Buddhist monasticism in revolutionary times, revealing an unexplored landscape of countermodern Buddhisms beyond old imperial formations and the newly invented national subject".

In part, King looks at the perspective provided by Sawa Damdin (1867-1937), "a historian, mystic, logician and pilgrim whose life and works straddle the late Qing period and its socialist aftermath, between the monastery and the party scientific academy". Insights from a wide range of figures with whom Damdin had contact are provided, ranging from the Dalai Lama to mystic monks in China to European scholars. As the book describes it, Damdin worked for three decades to "protect Buddhist tradition against what he called the 'bloody tides' of science, social mobility, and socialist party antagonism".

According to pre-publication material provided by Columbia University Press, this is the "first book to explore countermodern Buddhist monastic thought and practice along the Inner Asian frontiers during these tumultous years," thus shedding light on "previously unknown religious and legacies of the Qing" while also providing "an unparalled view of Buddhist life in the revolutionary period".

Matthew W. King is assistant professor in transnational Buddhism in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California-Riverside

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Roxanne Prazniak, ed., Sudden Appearances: The Mongol Turn in Commerce, Belief and Art; 304 pages ($68 Hardcover); (University of Hawaii Press, 2019)

Part of the University of Hawaii Press's continuing series Perspectives on the Global, this new book will be of special interest to ACMS members, given its emphasis on the "artistic creations and political transformations" fostered across Eurasia as part of a "new historical consciousness visible in the artlstic legacy of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries . . . common themes, styles, motifs and pigments circulated to an unprecedented extent during this era, creating an equally unprecedented field of artistic exchange".

Examples of this impact are wide-ranging and include many "art historical puzzles" including the Siiyah Kalem paintings, the female cup-bearer in the Royal Drinking Scene at Alchhi and the Mongol figures who appear in the Sienese mural . . . Drawing on primary sources both visual and literary as well as scholarship that has only recently achieved critical mass in the area of Mongolian studies and Eurasian histories, Roxanne Prazniak orchestrates an inquiry into a critical passage in world history, a prelude to the spin-off to modernity".

Notably, this volume does not resort to the usual geographic "markers" such as China, Europe, the Middle East and India; rather, it moves the focus away from the nation-state and instead moves the analysis "toward a borderless world of creative commerce".

Roxanne Prazniak is Professor of History at the Robert A. Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon. Her PhD is from the University of California-Davis; she also has degrees from San Francisco State University and the University of California-Berkeley.

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Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology edited by Junko Habu, Peter V. Lape and John W. Olsen; 771 pages; ($299); (Springer, 2017)

This comprehensive handbook published in late 2017 includes a number of chapters on Mongolia which will be of special interest to those conducting archaeology in that country:

-- Byambaa Gunchinsuren, "A History of Mongolian Archaeological Studies" (pp. 59-77)
-- Byambaa Gunchinsuren, "The Development of Prehistoric Archaeology in Mongolia (pp. 293-308)
-- William Honeychurch, "The Development of Cultural and Social Complexity in Mongolia" (pp. 513-532)
-- Byambaa Gunchinsuren, "The Archaeology of Mongolia's Early States" (pp. 707-732)


ANNOUNCEMENT AND INVITATION

The University of California-Berkeley's Mongolia Initiative schedule for Spring 2019 includes a launch of the Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology, as detailed below.

WHEN:
Monday, April 29 beginning at 3 PM

WHERE:
180 Doe Library
University of California-Berkeley 

Further information on this event provided by the University of California-Berkeley's Mongolia Initiative includes the following:

This event celebrates the publication of the Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology by inviting two editors of this volume, both of whom are prominent scholars in the field of Asian Archaeology. John W. Olsen (University of Arizona) will talk about his recent archaeological expeditions in Mongolia and Tibet with a focus on Paleolithic archaeology in these regions. Peter V. Lape (University of Washington) will disuss his recent survey of small islands in eastern Indonesia and new information about the island Southeast Asia Neolithic period.