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This Month in Mongolian Studies is a monthly listing of selected academic activities, resources and other material related to Mongolia. This list is based on information the ACMS has received and is presented as a service to its members. If you would like to submit information to be included in next month's issue please contact the ACMS at info@mongoliacenter.orgThis publication is supported in part by memberships. Please consider becoming a member of the ACMS, or renewing your membership by visiting our website at mongoliacenter.org/join. Thank you!
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ACMS Announcements, News and Media References
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TRAVEL SCHEDULES
ACMS Resident Director Tricia Turbold returned to Ulaanbaatar in early April, having attended the ACMS Board Meetings in Washington, DC and met with ACMS constituents and supporters in New York and Philadelphia during her visit.
ACMS Executive Director Jonathan Addleton will be in Mongolia from mid May until June, taking the opportunity to reconnect with Mongolia after five years away. During April he conducted a variety of outreach activities related to Mongolia, including talks with students, faculty and the advisory board of the College of Charleston's School of Languages, Cultures and World Affairs in Charleston, South Carolina. He also visited Washington, DC, scheduling meetings at the Mongolian Embassy, Smithsonian Institute, Council of Overseas American Research Centers (CAORC) and the Ed Nef Foundation which funds a number of programs in Mongolia.
ACMS Cultural Heritage Coordinator Julia Clark will also be Mongolia for much of the summer, in her case arriving in Ulaanbaatar in early June. She has spent the first part of this year undertaking a fellowship in Australia, doing a lot to raise the profile of ACMS on both coasts of that country.
For ACMS members living in Mongolia or visiting Ulaanbaatar over the summer, please do take the opportunity to drop by the ACMS office and library at the Ulaanbaatar Public Library and meet with Tricia, Jonathan, Julia and others there!
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LIST OF ACMS-AFFILIATED INSTITUTIONS (2018)
ACMS recently updated its list of ACMS institutional members, each of which is also represented on the ACMS Board. As presented at the most recent ACMS Board Meeting in Washington, DC in March 2018, the following institutions are considered as active ACMS institutional members for the 2018 calendar year; of course, we always welcome additional members -- if you are interested in having your institution added to this list, please contact ACMS at the following e-mail address: info@mongoliacenter.org
"Regular" Institutional Members (24)
Austin College
Colorado State University
Columbia University
Embassy of Canada
Indiana University
International School of Ulaanbaatar
Macalester College
Montana State University
Principia College
Rutgers University
School of International Training (SIT)
Smithsonian Institute
University of Alaska - Anchorage
University of Arizona
University of British Columbia
University of California - Berkeley
University of Chicago
University of Kansas
University of Nebraska
University of New Mexico
University of North Georgia
University of Wisconsin
Western Washington University
Yale University
Reciprocal Institutional Members (6)
Arts Council of Mongolia
Buryat State University
Business Council of Mongolia
Mercer University
National University of Mongolia
Royal Roads University
University of Pennsylvania
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ACMS Sponsored Programs and Events
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ACMS TO HOST MONGOLIAN CULTURAL HERITAGE CONFERENCE IN ULAANBAATAR ON JUNE 15, 2018
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) Cultural Heritage Program (CHP) is organizing a conference scheduled to take place from 9 AM to 5 PM on Friday, June 15, 2018 in Ulaanbaatar related to the Henry Luce Foundation-sponsored Cultural Heritage Program and other cultural heritage-related topics in Mongolia.
Past CHP/Luce Fellows are especially encouraged to participate, though participation is open and free of charge to all interested parties. The conference will be held in English and involve both presentations and posters in English on topics related to Mongolian culture heritage, both from traditional disciplines such as anthropology, archaeology and history and from other disciplines not traditionally associated with cultural heritage themes such as biology, economics, politics, ecology, medicine and others. All papers must have a clear cultural heritage linkage.
Participation is free and does not involve a registration fee. To register, please send a 100-200 word abstract in English by June 1st in English to the ACMS Cultural Heritage Coordinator, Dr. Julia Clark at jclark@mongoliacenter.org
If you would like to attend without presenting a poster, please register by June 8, 2018 via the Cultural Heritage Conference website.
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ACMS SPEAKER SERIES (UPCOMING)
Kim Dupont-Madinier: "Energy Efficient Gers for the Ger Districts" (5:30 PM on Tuesday, May 8 at the American Corner, Ulaanbaatar Public Library)
 Ulaanbaatar ranks as possibly the most polluted cities in the world during winter months and deadly air pollution is widely viewed as one of Mongolia's biggest urban problems. The scope of Kim Dupont-Madinier’s Fulbright Research Fellowship is to develop a ger that uses energy efficient construction guidelines by following the "Passive House Standard", with a view toward reducing the ger’s heating energy consumption by 90 percent while using alternative energy sources to coal.
Dupont-Madinier will provide further details on this project which aims to create a low-income housing prototype that simultaneously preserves key elements of the Mongolian ger while adapting it to reduce air pollution in Ulaanbaatar. This sustainable housing solution is being developed in cooperation with Mongolian NGOs such as GerHub and EcoTown as well as with local and international partners including the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Mongolian University of Science and Technology, Saint-Gobain, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, Arig Bank, UBGC, Render, Zag Construction and other Mongolian partners.
Kim Dupont-Madinier is a 2015 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), having earned BA degrees in both Architecture and Fine Arts. As an RISD student, she served as the student team lead for the Saint-Gobain-sponsored “Techstyle Haus” project – a sustainable textile house that aimed to meet the Passive House Standard, reducing the heating load of the building by 90 percent while also being powered by solar panels. The project competed in the 2014 Solar Decathlon in Versailles, France, and was installed in its final location at the Domaine de Boisbuchet, a center for Culture and Design in Lessac, France. She is currently studying in Mongolia under a a Fulbright Fellowship.
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Jonathan Addleton: "Mongolia and the United States: The First 150 Years" (5:30 PM on Tuesday, May 22 at the American Corner, Ulaanbaatar Public Library)
 There is no certainty as to when the first US citizen visited the territory that now constitutes Mongolia. However, travel passes dating to the Manchu period in the Mongolian National Archives in Ulaanbaatar provide intriguing clues -- including one dating to 1862 that authorizes a "Mr. Pelosi" or "Mr. Felosi" to transit Mongoila en route from Beijing to St. Petersburg, accompanied by a travelling companion from France. Later, a second document indicates that the two tourists did indeed take the journey, arriving at Mongolia's northern border on camels, crossing into Siberia and then continuing their travels into Russia from there.
Using that incident as a starting point, Addleton goes on to describe a multitude of subsequent encounters between Mongolia and the United States over the next 150 years, including such visitors as Civil War journalist and writer Thomas Knox, future US president Herbert Hoover, World War II military leader Joseph Stillwell, prolific travel writer Harry Franck, explorer Roy Chapman Andrews, American Vice President Henry Wallace, Supreme Court Justice William Douglas and countless others, continuing up to the present day. Addleton will also discuss events that led to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in January 1987 followed by deepening relations in a number of areas including the three main "D's" of foreign policy -- defense, development and diplomacy -- over the last thirty years.
Jonathan Addleton retired from the US Foreign Service in January 2017 following a 32-year career that included assignments as US Ambassador to Mongolia; USAID Representative to the European Union, Senior Civilian Representative to Southern Afghanistan based in Kandahar and USAID Mission Director in India, Pakistan Cambodia, Mongolia and Central Asia. HIs books include "The Dust of Kandahar: A Diplomat Among Warriors in Afghanistan" (Naval Institute Press); "Mongolia and the United States: A Diplomatic History" (Hong Kong University Press); "Some Far and Distant Place" (University of Georgia Press); and "Undermining the Center: The Gulf Migration and Pakistan" (Oxford University Press). Currently serving as Executive Director of the American Center for Mongolian Studies, he is also an Adjunct in the Department of International and Global Affairs at Mercer University in Macon, GA.
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ACMS SPEAKER SERIES (PREVIOUS)
Sam Bass: "The Bound Steppe: Notes on Enslavement in Qin Mongolia"
(5:30 PM on Tuesday, April 17 at the American Corner, Ulaanbaatar Public Library)
 This presentation examined several archival examples of enslavement to illustrate important topics and challenges in the history of slavery in Mongolia: the phenomenon of slavery skepticism in Inner Asian history, the terminology of enslavement in early modern Mongolia, and the seeming disappearance of slavery as a formal practice in the nineteenth century.
Mongolia’s historical record is replete with references to captivity, enslavement, and release from bondage. Despite the ubiquity of these references, there are few studies of slavery as a historical issue in Mongolian history. Scholars have instead argued that slavery was either insignificant or absent in pastoral nomadic Inner Asian societies including Mongolia, based on a dubious methodology of applying modern ethnographic concepts to historical and archaeological data, and relying on the apparent ambiguity of terms for enslavement in Mongolia.
Based on hundreds of wills and testaments from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries held in the Mongolian National Central Archives, the speaker analyzed some of these terms in their contemporary context and compared them with the terminology of enslavement in other societies. At the same time, he examined the nineteenth century decline in instances of enslavement on the basis of the testamentary evidence and suggested factors that led to the decline, such as changes in family and labor practices.
Sam Bass is a PhD candidate in History and Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University. He is from Atlanta, Georgia, where he earned a degree in History from Georgia State University. His current research project examines the social history of slavery in Qing Mongolia, focusing on family, illegitimacy and the state in the eighteen and nineteenth centuries. He is a Fulbright fellow in Ulaanbaatar affiliated with the Mongolian National University. He is currently conducting research for his dissertation in the Mongolian National Archives and Mongolian Central Library.
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RUBIN INTERNSHIP ANOUNCEMENT
 The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is pleased to announce a cultural heritage fellowship opportunity for a Mongolian museum education professional to conduct an internship with the Rubin Museum in New York City, New York in fall 2018. This internship will allow the Mongolian fellow to learn about the Rubin's approach to museum education, attend a docent training workshop and bring those lessons back to Mongolia. Working with ACMS, the fellow will present their experiences to other Mongolian museum education professionals upon their return from the internship. The internship provides a stipend and housing assistance for 3-5 weeks in New York.
Eligibility requirements include:
-- Mongolian national
-- Currently works in a museum education role in Mongolia
-- Speaks English at an intermediate or advanced level
-- Available to participate in fall 2018
To apply for this internship, please submit a CV and letter of interest describing your current positon and how you believe this internship would benefit you and your institution. Application material should be in English and be sent to: apply@mongoliacenter.org with "Rubin Internship" in the subject line. The deadline for this application is June 1, 2018.
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TWO PhD POSITONS IN MONGOLIAN AND RUSSIAN HISTORY AND UKRAINIAN HISTORY (Deadline for Submitting Application: May 31, 2018)
 The University of Heidelberg in Heidelberg, Germany invites applications for two 3-year PhD positions in the European Research Council Project Entangled Parliamentarisms: Constitutional Practices in Russia, Ukraine, China, and Mongolia, 1905–2005.” One PhD candidate will explore the history of Ukrainian parliamentarism from the participation of Ukrainian representatives in the State Duma of the Russian Empire to the 2004 Constitutional Reform. The other PhD candidate will focus on the history of the concept of khural and its institutional forms in Mongolia and the Russian Federation (Buryatia, Kalmykia, and Tuva).
The project Entangled Parliamentarisms: Constitutional Practices in Russia, Ukraine, China, and Mongolia, 1905–2005 addresses the entangled histories of deliberative decision making, political representation, and constitutionalism on the territories of the former Russian and Qing Empires and focuses on the cases of Russia, Ukraine, China, and Mongolia between 1905 and 2005.
Employing the perspectives of New Imperial History and Transcultural Studies, the project looks beyond narrow state-centered approaches and takes advantage of multidisciplinary methodology involving both history and political science. The project traces parliamentary developments, interactions among imperial and post-imperial intellectuals and their engagement in global discussions, shared imperial legacies, mutual borrowings and references, imperial and post-imperial political practices, and translatability of concepts. It seeks to refute the stereotypes about inclinations towards democracy in particular national contexts by tracing relevant transnational practices and interactions and by providing a nuanced political and intellectual history of parliamentarism.
The University of Heidelberg will employ both PhD candidates for three years (gross monthly salary is approximately 2,475 EUR) and sponsor two months of archival fieldwork in Ukraine and Mongolia, respectively. Prospective candidates should hold an MA or equivalent in history or a related field and have excellent knowledge of English (TOEFL 90 or IELTS 7), Ukrainian or Mongolian, respectively, and Russian. The positions are scheduled to start on October 1, 2018.
Candidates should submit the following documents electronically as a single PDF-file to entpar.heidelberg@gmail.com by May 31, 2018: (1) cover letter; (2) CV; (3) certificate of MA or equivalent; (4) transcript of records; (5) certificate of proficiency in English (TOEFL or IELTS); and (6) short essay (750–1000 words without references) explaining how research on the proposed topic will be conducted.
The CV and essay must be written in English. Other documents can be submitted in English, Ukrainian, Russian, or German. If completion of the MA degree is expected in 2018, a transcript of records will suffice. Please attach any peer-reviewed publications as PDF copies to the application (not mandatory).
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Research Fellowships, Scholarships and Grants |
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Many thanks to those submitting applications for the summer 2018 ACMS Summer Fellowship Program. The applications have been reviewed and the following eight Field Research Fellow have been selected to receive funding for their projects through the ECA/CAORC program:
Cynthia S. Brown (Colorado State University): Mongolian Sustainable Rangeland Collaborative"
Jean M. Caldieron (Florida Atlantic University): Ger detection, Changes, and Urban Growth Models for Informal Settlements in Ulaanbaatar Using Remote Sensing Techniques
Joseph Cleveland (Indiana University): Publics, Bureaucracy, and the Built Environment in Contemporary Ulaanbaatar
Alexander C. Diener (University of Kansas): Axial Development in Mongolia: Intended and Unintended Effects of New Roads
Drewry Hanes (Montana State University): A Survey of Chronic Disease Risk Factor Prevalence Among Rural Herder Populations in Northern Mongolia
Eduardo Hazera (University of Texas at Austin): Is Herd Composition Transforming Herder-Livestock Communication? An Interdisciplinary Examination of Musical Communication in Mongolia
Christopher McCarthy (Johns Hopkins University): Secrets of the Sand: A Spatial Inventory of Mongolia's Ancient Caravan Route to Lhasa
Kristen R. Pearson (University of Pennsylvania): An Anthropological Approach to the Study of Mongolian Textiles
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ADVANCE NOTICE: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DEMOCRACY IN THE 21ST CENTURY (July 9-10, 2018)
 Ulaanbaatar has been a chosen to host the International Conference on Democracy on July 9-10, based partly on Mongolia's unique experience of democratic transiton. This year also marks the 10th anniversary of the Independent Research Institute of Mongolia (IRIM), the conference organizer. Other sponsors included the World Society Foundation (WSF)
The conference language will be English. There is no registration fee. A total of 16 international scholars from 14 different countries will join 8 Mongolian scholars in presenting papers, the best of which will be published as part of the WSF's ongoing book series titled "World Society Studies". Travel grants will be issued for three Mongolian scholars abroad who wish to participate. The deadline for applications is May 4.
Original work from both Mongolian and international scholars is welcome, especially related to conference focus areas: (1) urban/rural cleavages and democracy; (2) civil society and democracy; and (3) extractive economics, resource-rich countries and democracy.
For more information, visit the following website: www.irim.mn
Feel free to also contact the following e-mail address: Erdenetsetseg@irim.man
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ADVANCE NOTICE: FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CHINESE SYMPOSIUM ON MONGOLIA STUDIES (August 11-13, 2018)
As part of an effort to strengthen academic exchanges among scholars and promote Mongolian Studies, the Inner Mongolian Academy of Social Science, Inner Mongolian University and Chinese Association for Mongolian Studies will jointly hold the Fifth International Symposium on Mongolian Studies in Hohhot City (Inner Mongolia) on August 11-13, 2018
The theme this year is Mongolian Culture and Modern Civilization. The program will focus on four main areas: (1) Mongolian language; (2) Mongolian history; (3) Mongolian literature; and (4) Nomadic Culture.
For those interested in submitting papers, an English title and abstract is required. Abstracts should be no more than 500 words and papers no more than 8,000 words. Papers may be in Mongolian, Chinese or English. PDF versions of papers should be sent to the e-mail address shown below by May 15, 2018.
There are no conference, food or accomodation fees. However, participants will need to pay for their own transportation.
For more details including on submitting and formatting papers, please contact Bai Tuya (086- 0471-4956930 or 086-15847168917) or He Yongzhe (086-0471 4957343 or 086- 13474705047); the email contact point is: kezuchu@sina.cn
Address: Research Organization, Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Science, No 129 Daxue East Road, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, PR China
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AN INTRODUCTION TO THE MONGOLIAN COLLECTION AT WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON
 The library at Western Washington University (WWU) recently posted an excellent introduction, written by Professor Henry G. Schwarz, on the history and content of its Mongolian language collection. Here are some highlights from that introduction:
At the time of its establishment in 1971, WWU's Center for East Asian Studies developed programs for the two major countries of the region, China and Japan. From the very beginning, the China Program strongly emphasized the country's minorities. As a result, WWU now has one of the best collections on this subject, including numerous books written in all officially recognized scripts used by certain non-Chinese groups, particularly the Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Mongols.
Of these, particular emphasis was given to the Mongols, and by 1973 WWU offered its first courses in Mongolian Studies. In that same year, Professor Schwarz went on the first of many study trips to China where he collected books which he then donated to the Western Washington University Libraries, a practice he has continued to this day. Of the 19,000 volumes he has donated so far, a substantial portion are on Mongolia and the Mongols.
Professor Schwarz's friend and former colleague at the University of Washington, the world-famous Altaicist and Mongolist Nicholas Poppe, donated his private library, and other Mongolists also contributed to what is now North America’s largest academic library collection of books on the subject, with well over 12,500 titles as of October 2013.
WWU has also hosted a number of activities related to Mongolia over the years. For example, it hosted the first North American Conference on Mongolian Studies in 1978 and an international seminar on “Mongolian Culture and Society in the Age of Globalization” in 2005. The proceedings of both conferences were published in the Center for East Asian Studies two book series, Studies on East Asia and East Asian Research Aids and Translations.
Other books on Mongolia in these series include Mongolian Short Stories (1974), Bibliotheca Mongolica (1978), Professor Poppe's autobiography, Reminiscences (1983),The Minorities of Northern China (1984), Mongolia and the Mongols: Holdings at Western Washington University (1992), Opuscula Altaica (1994) which is the festschrift presented to Professor Schwarz upon his retirement, the English edition of Academician Shirendev’s autobiography Through the Ocean Waves (1998), The Last Mongol Prince: The Life and Times of Demchugdongrub (2000), and the English edition of Academician Bira’s Mongolian Historical Writing from 1200 to 1700 (2002).
These activities have been supported since 1997 by the Henry G. Schwarz Endowment Fund for Mongolian Studies which provides in perpetuity scholarships, money for purchasing Mongolian books for this university’s libraries, and travel grants to assist scholars to come to Bellingham and use WWU's library resources.
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 Volume 19 (2017) of the journal Inner Asia, published twice annually by Brill in Leiden, contains a number of interesting articles on Mongolia, including Orhon Myadar's "In the Soviet Shadow: Soviet Colonial Politics in Mongolia" (pp. 5-28); Denise A. Austin's "The 'Third Spreading': Origins and Development of Protestant Evangelical Christianity in Contemporary Mongolia" (pp. 64-90); and Rebekah Plueckhahn's "The Power of Faulty Paperwork: Bureaucratic Negotiation, Land Access and Personal Innovation in Ulaanbaatar (pp. 91-109).
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In the Wake of the Mongols: The Making of a New Social Order in North China, 1200-1600 by Jinping Wang; 370 pages; $49.95 (Harvard University Press, 2018)
 Issued as Number 116 in the Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series and with a publication date of November 2018, this book recounts what the publisher describes as "the riveting story of how northern Chinese men and women adapted to these trying circumstances and interacted with their alien Mongol conquerers to create a drastically new social order. To construct this story the book uses a previously unknown source of inscriptions recorded on stone tablets".
As the publisher also notes, "Jinping Wang explores a north China where Mongol patrons, Daoist priests, Buddhist monks, and sometimes single women—rather than Confucian gentry—exercised power and shaped events, a portrait that upends the conventional view of imperial Chinese society. Setting the stage by portraying the late Jin and closing by tracing the Mongol period’s legacy during the Ming dynasty, she delineates the changing social dynamics over four centuries in the northern province of Shanxi, still a poorly understood region".
Jinping Wang is Assistant Professor of History at the National University of Singapore
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Proverbes & Dictons de Mongolie ("Proverbs and Sayings of Mongolia"); translated and interpreted by Marc Alaux and Charlotte Marchina; calligraphy by Togoobatyn Jamyansuren; 96 pages; 13 Euros (GeoRama Editions, 2018)
This book is part of a series of similar French-languague volumes presenting proverbs and sayings from Uzbekistan, Japan and elsewhere. According to the publisher, "Organic, trivial and sometimes funny, as well as wise and distanced, the Mongolian proverbs transport us to the heart of the steppe: on horseback, in the smell and warmth of the herd, in the middle of the hills, in the intimacy of the yurt . . . They immerse us in the daily life of nomadic pastoralists, among the people of Genghis Khan. And miracuously, these wind-chopped maxims of the great Asian meadows echo our western sedentary lives".
Marc Alaux, born in 1976, was an archeologist before becoming an editor and bookseller. He travelled for two and a half years in Mongolia, walking 7,000 kilometers. He is the author of several books including "Under the Yurts of Mongolia".
Charlotte Marchina, born in 1987, is an anthropologist who studied the language and culture of Mongolia for several years. Her doctoral thesis is on nomadic pastoralism.
Togoobatyn Jamyansuren, born in 1974, is recognized as one of the most prominent calligraphers in Mongolia. He is also an artist, illustrator, engraver and silversmith whose works have been widely exhibited in Mongolia, France and elsewhere.
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The Silk Road (Volume 15), edited by Daniel Waugh; 218 pages; free download (Annual journal of the Silk Road 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/>
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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).
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