Speaker Series - Jonathan Addleton
2018-05-22 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
Mongolia and the United States: The First 150 Years
There is no certainly 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 Mongolia 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.
About the Speaker:
Jonathan Addleton retired from the US Foreign Service in January 2017 following a 32-year career that included assignments as 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.
About:
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting scholarship in Mongolian Studies. The ACMS Speaker Series are organized in partnership with the U.S. Embassy and the Natsagdorj Library and provides an important platform for researchers engaged in Mongolia to share their experiences and findings with the public. The event promotes information exchange on a variety of subjects related to Mongolia and is free and open to the public.
Co sponsored by American Corner

Speaker Series - Kim Dupont-Madinier
2018-05-08 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
Energy Efficient Gers for the Ger Districts
Ulaanbaatar is the most polluted city in the world in the winter, where deadly air pollution has quickly become one of Mongolia’s biggest problems. The scope of Kim Dupont-Madinier’s Fulbright Research Fellowship is to develop a ger that uses the energy efficient construction guidelines by following the Passive House Standard for gers in Ulaanbaatar’s ger districts with the hope of reducing the ger’s heating energy consumption by 90%, while using alternative energy sources to coal. The project 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 collaboration with Mongolian NGOs such as GerHub and EcoTown, as well as local and international partners including: the Institute of Engineering and Technology, the Mongolian University of Science and Technology, Saint-Gobain, Upenn, Stanford, Arig Bank, UBGC, Render, Zag Construction, as well as many other Mongolian partners.
About the speaker:
Kim Dupont-Madinier is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design with a Bachelors of Architecture and a Bachelors of Fine Arts in 2015. Through her time at RISD, Kim was 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% – while 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. For her architectural thesis, Kim explored the concept of the Islamic veil (and other veils), with the attempt to construction common ground within an incredibly charged social and political subject. Through an analogous study, the final built design surfaced as a bathhouse, where one’s preconceived notions are de-robed and the procession through the various spaces enabled one the inhabit the different veils – representing themselves through the variety pressurized water conditions, whether it be the steam room, the sauna, the ice baths, etc. As a result, the project aimed for a built environment that allows for empathy. Kim is presently on Fulbright Fellowship (and on a leave-of-absence from CertainTeed: Saint-Gobain), where she is collaborating with local organizations in Mongolia designing a new paradigm of the urban energy efficient ger in order to reduce air pollution in Ulaanbaatar.
About:
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting scholarship in Mongolian Studies. The ACMS Speaker Series are organized in partnership with the U.S. Embassy and the Natsagdorj Library and provides an important platform for researchers engaged in Mongolia to share their experiences and findings with the public. The event promotes information exchange on a variety of subjects related to Mongolia and is free and open to the public.
In an effort to reach interested viewers outside of Mongolia, this Speaker Series will be broadcast live on the ACMS Facebook page! All Facebook live videos can be re-played at your convenience.
Co sponsored by American Corner

Speaker Series - The Bound Steppe: Notes on Enslavement in Qing Mongolia
2018-04-17 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
This presentation will briefly examine several archival examples of enslavement to illustrate several 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 data to historical and archaeological data. The slavery skeptic view is supported by the apparent ambiguity of the terminology of enslavement in Mongolia. Based on hundreds of wills and testaments from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries held in the Mongolian National Central Archives, the presenter will analyze some of these terms in their contemporary context and compare them with the terminology of enslavement in non-Mongolian places. Finally, the nineteenth century decline in instances of enslavement on the basis of the testamentary evidence and suggest factors that led to the decline such as changes in family and labor practices will be examied. This project engages Mongolian social history by examining local level processes of social change in the context of enslavement and manumission (the release from bondage), phenomenon generally relevant to early modern world history.
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About the speaker: Sam Bass
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 18th and 19th centuries. He is a Fulbright fellow in Ulaanbaatar affiliated with Mongolian National University. He is currently conducting research for his dissertation in the Mongolian National Central Archives and Mongolian Central Library.
About:
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting scholarship in Mongolian Studies. The ACMS Speaker Series are organized in partnership with the U.S. Embassy and the Natsagdorj Library and provides an important platform for researchers engaged in Mongolia to share their experiences and findings with the public. The event promotes information exchange on a variety of subjects related to Mongolia and is free and open to the public.
In an effort to reach interested viewers outside of Mongolia, this Speaker Series will be broadcast live on the ACMS Facebook page! All Facebook live videos can be re-played at your convenience.
Co sponsored by American Corner

Speaker Series - Anne-Sophie Pratte
2018-04-03 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
Mapping the Land and Making Borders: A Study of Mongolian Cartography from the Late 18th to the Early 20th century
From the late 18th to the early 20th century, nine local maps of the Üizen banner (a part of the modern day Dornod aimag) were drawn by local Mongol administrators, who were tasked with mapping each administrative region of Mongolia at regular intervals throughout the Manchu era. More than seven hundred of these maps are now preserved at the National Library, the National Archives of Mongolia, and various libraries in the world, along with thousands of pages documenting the mapping policies, techniques, and execution. While these unique images give considerable insight into local actors’ representation and organization of their land, they also raise several questions: why were they produced on such a large scale, and what do the map-making documents tell us about the Mongol local administration and its relationship with the central state? More broadly, how are they tied to frontier administration and geopolitics? This paper examines three main mapping projects initiated by the Manchu state in 1805, 1864, and 1890, and focuses on the tensions that arose between the central state and the Mongol local actors who were put in charge of drawing the maps and setting boundary-markers (oboos) between banners. Relying on more than eight months of archival work in Mongolia, China, and Europe, this study shows that while the mapping policies were designed by the Qing state to implement new ideologies of territorial organization stemming from a changing geopolitical context, they elicited significant resistance from the local leaders who advocated for the preservation of existing practices of land-use and territorial administration in Mongolia.
About the speaker: Anne-Sophie Pratte
Anne-Sophie Pratte a 4th year PhD candidate in Inner Asian and Altaic Studies at Harvard University. She is originally from the Montréal area in Québec, Canada, where she completed her undergrad studies and earned a Master’s degree in East Asian Studies at McGill University. Her current PhD dissertation research examines the impacts of Qing rule on Mongolian environment and local society with a focus on cartography and territorial organization. She is currently based in Ulaanbaatar where she is conducting archival work for the 2017-2018 academic year.
About:
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting scholarship in Mongolian Studies. The ACMS Speaker Series are organized in partnership with the U.S. Embassy and the Natsagdorj Library and provides an important platform for researchers engaged in Mongolia to share their experiences and findings with the public. The event promotes information exchange on a variety of subjects related to Mongolia and is free and open to the public.
In an effort to reach interested viewers outside of Mongolia, this Speaker Series will be broadcast live on the ACMS Facebook page! All Facebook live videos can be re-played at your convenience.
Co sponsored by American Corner

Speaker Series – Daniel Miller
2018-03-20 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
Where’s the beef ? Adapting Mongolian cattle raising practices to take advantage of growing markets for beef.
Increasing opportunities for Mongolia to supply beef to markets in China, Russia and other countries, along with an expanding domestic market for high quality beef, have encouraged government policymakers, aid officials, and businessmen to make the case for investing in Mongolia’s beef cattle industry. Mongolians have been raising cattle for thousands of years and there are currently more cattle than people in Mongolia – about 4 million head of cattle (including yaks). The country’s vast grasslands are believed to have the potential to develop “organic, grass-fed, natural beef”, thus commanding a higher price paid by discerning consumers from around the world who want healthier food products. While there are good prospects for the beef cattle industry in Mongolia, there are numerous challenges that need to be overcome. This presentation will discuss the opportunities and challenges in Mongolia to produce quality beef and review beef cattle raising practices, lessons-learned and new technologies for improving beef cattle production in the United States. It will then outline steps Mongolia could take to incorporate best practices from the United States and how to integrate Mongolian herders’ knowledge and skills to adapt current cattle raising practices in order to respond to domestic and export markets for quality beef.
About the speaker: Daniel Miller
He grew up on a dairy farm in the state of Minnesota in the United States. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal, where he learned to speak Nepali and Tibetan and worked with yak herders. Returning to the USA after four years in Nepal, he worked as a cowboy for many years on large cattle ranches in Montana. Trained as a rangeland ecologist at the University of Montana, where he received a Master’s Degree, he has undertaken research on rangelands, wildlife and nomads in the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau and has published numerous scientific articles about his work. He has worked on economic growth, agricultural development and conservation projects for the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, UNDP, FAO, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and NGOs such as the Wildlife Conservation Society and World Wildlife Fund in Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, Fiji, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan and Papua New Guinea. He first came to Mongolia in 1992 as a consultant for the Asian Development Bank and has worked in, and visited, the country numerous times since then, including serving as the Acting USAID Development Advisor in the U.S. Embassy in 2015. He currently works as a livestock specialist for Mercy Corps Mongolia. He is an accomplished photographer and recently published a coffee-table book of black and white photos of Tibetan nomads in both English and Mongolian languages. More of his writings and photographs can be viewed at: www.maptia.com/danielmiller
About:
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting scholarship in Mongolian Studies. The ACMS Speaker Series are organized in partnership with the U.S. Embassy and the Natsagdorj Library and provides an important platform for researchers engaged in Mongolia to share their experiences and findings with the public. The event promotes information exchange on a variety of subjects related to Mongolia and is free and open to the public.
In an effort to reach interested viewers outside of Mongolia, this Speaker Series will be broadcast live on the ACMS Facebook page! All Facebook live videos can be re-played at your convenience.
Co sponsored by American Corner

Speaker Series - Petya Andreeva
2018-03-06 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
Fantastic Beasts on the Eurasian Steppes: The Politics of Burial Regalia in Iron Age Funerary Art along the Mongolian steppes and further west
In its simplest definition, the term “animal style” is frequently used to describe a group of material comprised of portable luxury goods with zoomorphic designs commonly found in burials dispersed across the large geographic domain of the Eurasian steppe belt. The high-end objects featuring this approach to decoration include headdresses, clothing plaques, belt buckles and textile fragments embellished with detailed scenes of dynamic animal interaction in which anatomically accurate animals as well as hybrid and abstracted zoomorphs are depicted in vigorous acts of predation, hunt or mystic transformation. In the last decade, newly excavated elite burials dispersed throughout the Western Mongolian steppes, the Mongolian Altai region, the Tuva basin, the Kazakh uplands and the Northern Black Sea grassland have shed further light on the various approaches to burial practices among distinct nomadic groups thus challenging the concept of “nomadic unity”; such differences are especially pronounced in the treatment of the body and its systematic decoration before its placement in the tomb. The current discourse will focus on the political and cosmological implications of the strategic placement and ceremonial usage of headdresses in early Iron Age elite burials. I demonstrate that various nomadic entities which inhabited the Ordos Loop and its surrounding regions in the 7th -3rd century BCE invented individual artistic approaches to dealing with the same conceptual problem, that is, the presence of a real-life audience to attend the funerary ceremony and an imagined one to be present in the afterlife. The occurrence of elongated, spiral-shaped gold headdresses, usually accompanied by torques terminating into fantastic animals is a prominent component in the majority of the elite burials discussed in this study, from the Mongolian Altai to the Northern Black Sea steppes of the Dniepr river. Thus, we will delve into the spiritual and political motivations behind the construction of such carefully planned burial attire and its role in the making of the tomb spatial dynamics.
About the speaker: Petya Andreeva
She is a last-year PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania’s East Asian Languages and Civilizations Department. Her main research interest is in the cultural and artistic exchange between nomadic entities and sedentary empires in Eurasia. She is particularly interested in the construction of burial space and its role in the intersection between politics and spirituality in the ancient world. Her previous publications include an article on rock drawings in the South Gobi province, co-authored with renowned scholar of Mongolian history, Dr. Christopher Atwood, as well as articles and catalogue entries on various topics in East Asian art, including image and script in modern Chinese art, textiles in Tokugawa Japan and Uyghur imagery in Buddhist complexes in Xinjiang. Petya Andreeva has been awarded Asian art fellowships by various museums in Asia and the United States, including the National Museum of Korea, the University of Hong Kong Museum, the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. In addition, last summer, she received several national grants to carry out her dissertation fieldwork in museums and other cultural institutions in St. Petersburg, Siberia, Almaty and Astana. Petya Andreeva is indebted to the American Center for Mongolian Studies in Ulaanbaatar for their generous help and tremendous support in her academic endeavors in Mongolia.
About:
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting scholarship in Mongolian Studies. The ACMS Speaker Series are organized in partnership with the U.S. Embassy and the Natsagdorj Library and provides an important platform for researchers engaged in Mongolia to share their experiences and findings with the public. The event promotes information exchange on a variety of subjects related to Mongolia and is free and open to the public.
In an effort to reach interested viewers outside of Mongolia, this Speaker Series will be broadcast live on the ACMS Facebook page! All Facebook live videos can be re-played at your convenience.
Co sponsored by American Corner

Speaker Series - Kenneth Linden
2018-01-16 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
Ravenous Beasts, Pitiful Sinners, and Class Enemies: A History of the Wolf in Mongolia
In this talk I will offer a preliminary examination of the history of the relationship between wolves and humans. The history of the wolf in Mongolia provides an opportunity to disentangle the many competing factors used to explain human, environmental, and animal relations in Mongolia and globally. According to common wisdom, wolves play a sacred and revered role for Mongolians. This is in contrast to the rest of the world’s antagonistic relationship with the wolf, especially the American extermination of the wolf. However, a closer examination shows Mongolians most often portrayed wolves as objects of hatred, scorn, and as threats to lives and livelihood. Wolves are portrayed in an array of roles, from a monstrous predator, to greedy exploiter, to hunted fugitives. During the socialist period of Mongolia, wolf hunting became Marxist labor necessary to modernize the herding economy and build socialism. Although ultimately unsuccessful, socialist Mongolian wolf extermination campaigns showed similar tactics, professionalism, and businesslike violence reminiscent of wolf extermination projects in North America.
In this talk, I will use a combination of sources, including a close reading of literary sources, data from socialist government documents, hunters’ handbooks, and visual sources to examine how socialist era attitudes and policies to wolves compare with earlier periods of Mongolian history. This project is part of my larger dissertation research on the environmental and animal history of collectivization in socialist Mongolia.
About Speaker:
Kenneth Linden is a Ph.D. candidate in the Central Eurasian Studies Department at Indiana University, where he also earned his M.A. degree. Kenneth studies Mongolian history, with a focus on animal and environmental history. His dissertation research is on collectivization in the Mongolian People’s Republic and its transformation of how people interacted with animals and the environment. He is currently in Mongolia conducting his dissertation research with funding from Fulbright-Hays.
Kenneth first studied in Mongolia from 2014 as an ACMS Language Fellow. The following summer he conducted preliminary dissertation research as an ACMS Field Research Fellow. Kenneth continues to work study with the ACMS during his dissertation research.
About:
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting scholarship in Mongolian Studies. The ACMS Speaker Series are organized in partnership with the U.S. Embassy and the Natsagdorj Library and provides an important platform for researchers engaged in Mongolia to share their experiences and findings with the public. The event promotes information exchange on a variety of subjects related to Mongolia and is free and open to the public.
In an effort to reach interested viewers outside of Mongolia, this Speaker Series will be broadcast live on the ACMS Facebook page! All Facebook live videos can be re-played at your convenience.
Co-Sponsored by the American Corner, Ulaanbaatar

Speaker Series - On Wooden Horses: Musical Interactions between Humans, Animals, and Others in Post-Socialist Mongolia.
2017-12-19 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
About the speaker:
Kip is a Ph.D student in cultural anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently based out of Ulaanbaatar, undertaking fieldwork for his dissertation until the summer of 2018. He has been working with horse-head fiddle players and teachers, long-song singers, and herders in central and eastern Mongolia since 2010. Kip’s research interests are focused on the role of musical performance in the restructuring of nomadic pastoralism in 21st century Mongolia. Kip is currently a Cultural Heritage Research Fellow with the American Center for Mongolian Studies, and has been affiliated with the organization since he first began working in Mongolia.
Abstract:
This paper examines the roles and meanings of musical heritage in lived experiences of post-socialism. Drawing upon one year of ethnographic research, ‘On Wooden Horses’ explores how people in Mongolia manage relationships with livestock, landscape, and spirits musically. I focus on three vignettes from my dissertation fieldwork in particular, highlighting some of the ways Mongolian herders and musicians are using musical heritage to navigate ruptures and challenges presented by increasing urbanization and transformations to herding economies as well as areas of flux, such as the confluence of socialist and post-socialist ideas about religion and spirituality. Throughout these examples, musical heritage in Mongolia stands as a mediator through which people make sense of, and interact with, the non-human forces that have sway in their everyday lives, from soaring mountain peaks to sheep reluctant to nurse, from supernatural entities to urban sprawl.
About:
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting scholarship in Mongolian Studies. The ACMS Speaker Series are organized in partnership with the U.S. Embassy and the Natsagdorj Library and provides an important platform for researchers engaged in Mongolia to share their experiences and findings with the public. The event promotes information exchange on a variety of subjects related to Mongolia text and is free and open to the public.
Co-Sponsored by the American Cultural and Information Center, Ulaanbaatar
In an effort to reach interested viewers outside of Mongolia, this Speaker Series will be broadcast live on the ACMS Facebook page! All Facebook live videos can be re-played at your convenience.

Speaker Series - (Dis)integrations? Mega Projects and Narratives of State Legitimacy in the Gobi Desert
2017-12-05 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
About the speaker:
Ariell Ahearn is an ESRC postdoctoral fellow at the School for Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. She holds an MPA from Cornell University and a DPhil from the University of Oxford. She has worked with rural pastoralists in Mongolia since 2004 with research focusing on land tenure, local governance, gendered divisions of labor and social organization. In 2016, she worked in Omnogovi province as an independent expert on a panel to address the IFC’s Compliance Advisor Ombudsman case on Oyu Tolgoi’s impacts on pastoralism and the environment in Khan Bogd. She joined ACMS in 2004 as an SIT student. Ahearn owes much of her academic success to ACMS, which awarded her with a research fellowship to support her PhD fieldwork and supported her career development over the last 13 years.
Abstract:
This paper examines narratives of territorial integration and development in infrastructure projects linked to China’s One Belt, One Road. In particular, it engages with qualitative research around social conflicts surrounding the Oyu Tolgoi mega mine in the Gobi desert as a means to explore the concept of state fragility. At what moments are infrastructure projects a catalyst for imagining state integration, and at what moments do they lead to ruptures in the legitimacy of the state? The extent to which international corporations are seen as a mediating agent for restructuring inequalities in national economic distribution and social development is explored.
About:
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting scholarship in Mongolian Studies. The ACMS Speaker Series are organized in partnership with the U.S. Embassy and the Natsagdorj Library and provides an important platform for researchers engaged in Mongolia to share their experiences and findings with the public. The event promotes information exchange on a variety of subjects related to Mongolia text and is free and open to the public.
Co-Sponsored by the American Cultural and Information Center, Ulaanbaatar
In an effort to reach interested viewers outside of Mongolia, this Speaker Series will be broadcast live on the ACMS Facebook page! All Facebook live videos can be re-played at your convenience.

Speaker Series - Jessica Madison: Golden Mountain, Iron Heap: A Poetic Ethnography of Extraction in Eastern Mongolia
2017-11-21 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
About the speaker: Jessica Madison-Pískatá
Jessica Madison-Pískatá is a PhD student in cultural anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She also holds a MFA in poetry from the New School in New York City. She is currently based in Ulaanbaatar, where she will be conducting dissertation fieldwork until the summer of 2018. She first arrived in Mongolia in 2011, when she worked for two years as a United States Peace Corps volunteer in Sukhbaatar Aimag, and has split her time between the U.S. and Mongolia since then. Her research interests include the intersection of human creativity and environmental justice in the context of global climate change, particularly in the way local theories of landscape can broaden our understanding of the multiplicity inherent in human/non-human relations.
Abstract:
This paper focuses on a central puzzle: how does what otherwise appears to be a harmonious “magical ecology” accommodate a zinc mine? How can a tradition that sacralizes the unbroken earth also name mines after mountains? Considering both mountain and mine as different kinds of ovoo, nodes that function as both “energy centers” and “sacrifice zones” within the landscape, the paper interfaces with local theories that illuminate poetry to be a creator of worlds, and highlights the ambivalence, ambiguity, and poetic irony of mineral extraction in Mongolia. This paper explores Mongolia’s mineral extraction boom through an examination of local concepts of landscape. In order to engage seriously with local place-making practices, it analyzes the steppe topologically, looking at attributes of landscape that transcend material upheaval. In eastern Mongolia, poetry is a primary means of mediating human interaction with space, and thus poetic literacy is necessary for producing and understanding knowledge that turns space into landscape.
About:
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting scholarship in Mongolian Studies. The ACMS Speaker Series are organized in partnership with the U.S. Embassy and the Natsagdorj Library and provides an important platform for researchers engaged in Mongolia to share their experiences and findings with the public. The event promotes information exchange on a variety of subjects related to Mongolia and is free and open to the public.
Co-Sponsored by the American Cultural and Information Center, Ulaanbaatar

Speaker Series - One for Each Trouble: Establishing and Navigating Private Clinics in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
2017-11-14 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
About the speaker: Mari Valdur
Mari Valdur is a PhD student of social anthropology at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She is based in Ulaanbaatar for her PhD fieldwork until fall 2018. This is her fifth visit since early 2012 now amounting to year and a half working and carrying out research in Mongolia. Her current interests cover reproductive healthcare in Ulaanbaatar, both issues of availability, access and (in)formality as well as broader themes of spatial relations in and beyond the city, gender and personhood.
Abstract:
Since becoming a democratic state, Mongolia has gone through significant healthcare reforms that have resulted in the rise of a large and often confusing private sector. This presentation will review the recent history of a rising market economy and its impact on medical healthcare in Mongolia, with a particular focus on Ulaanbaatar.
In a situation where doctors’ salaries are below the national average, establishing private practices, or related businesses, has become one way for doctors to cope with the situation. For the patients (clients), the system, in many cases, remains unknown and unpredictable in the course of seeking assistance.
Although access to healthcare has become an extremely different experience, depending on the ability to pay, there are still services that overwhelmingly belong to the state, such as childbirth. This presentation will discuss social anthropology and medical anthropology and how these disciplines could approach and contribute to the understanding of the situation and provide some examples beyond Mongolia. Guests from both academic and non-academic backgrounds are warmly invited to participate.
About:
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting scholarship in Mongolian Studies. The ACMS Speaker Series are organized in partnership with the U.S. Embassy and the Natsagdorj Library and provides an important platform for researchers engaged in Mongolia to share their experiences and findings with the public. The event promotes information exchange on a variety of subjects related to Mongolia text and is free and open to the public.
Co-Sponsored by the American Cultural and Information Center, Ulaanbaatar

Speaker Series - Sainbileg Byambadorj: Changkya Qutuγtu Rol-pa’i-rdo-rje: the Source of Lexical Sage and its influence to Mongolian scriptural translation
2017-10-17 17:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
This year, 2017 marks the 300th birth anniversary of ChangkyaQutuγtu Rol-pa’i-rdo-rje (1717-1786). He will present in honoring his memory. Rolpai-dorje was an eminent scholar-monk who standardized Mongolian translation of Buddhist scriptures and was the chief editor of the translation project of the Mongolian Tangyur. In order to implement this translation project Changkya composed a bilingual orthography (guideline)entitled “The Source Lexical Sage” (Dag yig mkhas pa’i ‘byung gnas [Tib],Merged γarqu-yin oron [Mon]). Besides being a great scholar, Rolpai-dorje was a political activist who was the State Preceptor of the Qing Dynasty. He served for the Qianlong Emperor (1711-1799) and involved in various religio-political activities. The Rolpai-dorje’s supportive attitude towards Manchu Emperors yielded development of the Mongolian Buddhism and establishment of the Mongolian Canon.
In this presentation, Sainbileg will discuss two points; firstly, Rolpai-dorje’s title “Changkya Qutuγtu”. Some researchers write Rol-pa’i-rdo-rje was second reincarnation, yet some claim that he was the third reincarnation. He will shed light on whether Rol-pa’i-rdo-rje was the second or the third reincarnation of Changkya Qutuγtu, and what is the underlying meaning of the “title”.
Secondly, he will introduce the Dag-Yig and its influence to Mongolian scriptural translation. The Dag-Yig is a well-known work, yet it has the dubious distinction of being the least studied work. Hence, it is necessary to investigate Dag-Yig’s terminology system, structure and translation instructions in order to illuminate why it has been genially accepted by Tibetan and Mongolian scholars as a comprehensive guidebook for Buddhist translation. The study of the Dag-Yig provides a proper understanding of Mongolian Buddhist scriptures and helps further study of the vast scriptural resource of the Mongolian Canon.

Co-Sponsored by the American Cultural and Information Center, Ulaanbaatar

Speaker Series-Kathleen Kuo: Mongolia’s Musical Memories and Moving Mementos: Audiovisual Archival Recordings as Cultural Heritage
2017-10-03 17:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
While audiovisual archives in Mongolia are often frequented by scholars looking to supplement their research, there are no English language ethnographic publications on the relationships between these archives and discourses of memory and heritage, much less on the work happening within these archives themselves. When we think of intangible cultural heritage in Mongolia, we tend to think of genres as separate from those individuals or materials who are responsible for sustaining them over time (long song, camel coaxing rituals, horsehead fiddle, etc.). But what about forms of cultural heritage and historical moments captured within the physical medium of a tape or record? Should we also treat these recordings as cultural heritage, or are they something else entirely? How is audiovisual cultural heritage in Mongolia collected, preserved, and shared with others, especially within the institutional setting of the archive?
In this talk, Kathleen will present an overview of her project from the last six months studying archival and engineering efforts to collect, preserve, and share Mongolian audiovisual recordings. She will draw upon ethnographic case studies from her research and experience working in archives as well as from historical examples. Her talk will also include a discussion of the logistical and theoretical challenges to working with and framing audiovisual recordings as cultural heritage. In addition to contributing to public outreach for these resources and ongoing projects at these institutions, her hope is to draw more attention to the importance of preserving these materials and the significance of these experts’ work.
Co-Sponsored by the American Cultural and Information Center, Ulaanbaatar

Speaker Series - Pawel Szczap: Ulaanbaatar – the ugly duckling of Mongolian Studies
2017-09-12 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
Location: American Corner Reading Room, Natsagdorj Library
For many Mongolians and visitors alike today’s Ulaanbaatar remains somewhat of a stain on the otherwise appealing image Mongolia. Home to half of the country’s population and the center of many crucial economic, political, social as well as cultural developments the city de facto forms a reality both different and inseparable from the rest of Mongolia. Yet, as a habitat in stark opposition to the traditional Mongolian milieu Ulaanbaatar is sometimes neglected as a proper research area even by the Mongolian Studies community. Many important gaps in the bulk of Ulaanbaatar-related research remain to be filled. Drawing on several research examples and interests this talk will explore the possible importance of Ulaanbaatar to the general field of Mongolian Studies as well as point to specific problems crucial for further developing this field in statu nascendi.
About the Speaker
Paweł Szczap is a PhD student at the University of Warsaw. Over the past 9 years he has visited Mongolia several times in order to study and conduct research. With a background in Mongolian Studies he investigates modern social phenomena from a cultural and linguistic-oriented point of view. His PhD research concentrates on Ulaanbaatar toponyms. Before shifting his main research interest towards Ulaanbaatar he has dealt with topics like nationalist discourse in Mongolia and the impact of mining on Mongolian culture. He is currently developing the Ulaanbaatar Studies project (https://ubstudies.wordpress.com )

Speaker Series - Paul Mills: Who Wins From Mining in Mongolia
2017-09-05 17:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
He will be talking about who wins and who loses from mining in Mongolia. Clearly mining is a very important industry in Mongolia, but how much is it really contributing to addressing some of Mongolia’s often self-evident social problems? How can Mongolia get best returns from its mines? How can Mongolia best manage the returns from its mines, because even the best mines close? And how effective will mine reclamation efforts prove in the long run? These questions are relevant to Mongolia today and into the future.
Co-Sponsored by the American Cultural and Information Center, Ulaanbaatar

Speaker Series: Dr. Reuven Amitai - More than First Meets the Eye: The Impact of the Mongols on the Arab Middle East
2017-08-15 17:30 - 19:00 (Asia/Ulaanbaatar)
August 15th from 5:30 -7 pm
Natsagdorj Library, American Corner presentation room
Recent years have witnessed a number of important publications about the long-term implications of Mongol rule in the Middle East, with particular emphasis on cultural, intellectual, social and economic influence. Without denying the often-destructive nature of the waves of Mongol conquest, today’s researchers are more aware of decisive, often positive impact of subsequent Mongol rule, that has left a long-term mark on the region even until today. One area that has received particular attention is cultural and intellectual activity and development, but one might also note demographic transformations, the evolution of military structures and the effect on political culture. Most studies have been devoted to Iran and surrounding countries, and there is thus room to extend the discussion to the Arab-speaking countries, not the least to Syria (including Palestine) – only twice occupied briefly by the Mongols – and Egypt that never fell under Mongol rule. This lecture comes to show that Mongol influence was decisive not only in Iraq – an important component of the Ilkhanid state, but also those countries that never came under long-term Mongol control.
Among the topics to be surveyed here will be demographic developments, political and military formations, and cultural and intellectual activity. Like so-much of the eastern Middle East (and Eurasia as a whole), the long-term impact of the Mongols on the central Arabic speaking countries (Iraq, greater Syria and Egypt) was decisive, and one could suggest that without taking the Mongols into consideration, we cannot fully understand the later development of the region. The lecture will highlight some of the conclusions in the author’s chapter in the forthcoming Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire (co-edited by Michal Biran and Hodong Kim).
Speaker
Dr. Reuven Amitai
The Institute of Asian and African Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Bio
Reuven Amitai is the Eliyahu Elath Professor of Islamic History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in the history of the Middle East and neighboring areas in the later Middle Ages. He has published on the history of the Mongols in the Middle East, the Mamluk Sultanate, medieval Palestine, military history and processes of Islamization. Among his books are Holy War and Rapprochement: Studies in the Relations between the Mamluk Sultanate and the Mongol Ilkhanate (1260-1335) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013); Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change: The Mongols and Their Eurasian Predecessors, co-edited with Michal Biran (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015); Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean, 11th to 15th Centuries, co-edited with Christoph Cluse (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming).

Jaime Bue - Mongolia’s International Investment Arbitration Experience and the case of Khan Resources
2017-08-08 17:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
This presentation looks at Mongolia’s investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) experience with a focus on the case of Khan Resources v. Mongolia to try to answer the question: Can Dispute System Design (DSD) offer better alternatives for resolving investment treaty-related conflict? What would such alternatives look like for Mongolia?
The case of Khan Resources v. Mongolia went to ad hoc arbitration under the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) in 2011 and ended with a ruling in 2015 that Mongolia had to pay $80 million USD in damages to Khan Resources plus $20 million in legal fees. This oft-overlooked case is critical for understanding the international investment treaty environment and challenges within Mongolia. By tracing the development of international investment arbitration, we can understand how the global ISDS system indirectly shaped the government’s investment laws following the Mongolian Democratic Revolution and the role of arbitration in settling such conflicts in Mongolia today.
Co-Sponsored by the American Cultural and Information Center, Ulaanbaatar

Speaker Series - Johanni Curtet & Nomindari Shagdarsuren
2017-07-04 17:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
Following the inscription of Mongolian Traditional Art of Khöömii on the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010, ethnomusicologist Johanni Curtet and specialist of intangible cultural heritage Nomindari Shagdarsuren have worked since 2011 to create a reference documentation on the Mongolian khöömii tradition, which resulted in this record.
Through 43 tracks, including 28 previously unreleased, this double disc gathers the essentials of Mongolian khöömii, from early sound archives to the present day, showing the history and evolution of the art over sixty years (1954- 2016) and three generations.

Speakers Johanni Curtet and Nomindari Shagdarsuren will present this work for the CD launch in Mongolia.
US release: June 2017
Mongolian release: July 2017
More information:
In English: www.routesnomades.fr/en/anthology
In Mongolian: www.routesnomades.fr/mn/anthology-mn

Co-Sponsored by the American Cultural and Information Center, Ulaanbaatar

Laura Goodman - Pediatric Surgical Need in Mongolia: Characterizing the Resources and Burden
2017-05-16 17:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
Background: Childhood mortality has decreased significantly in Mongolia since 1990. Diseases that can be treated with surgery – injuries, congenital anomalies, some infections – are increasing in importance as result of successful efforts to treat and prevent respiratory infections, diarrhea, and other common conditions. Children have unique diseases and physiology that require specially trained providers, and appropriately-sized supplies and equipment. We characterize the epidemiology of congenital anomalies and assess pediatric surgical capacity nation-wide.
Methods: Using data from a passive-reporting congenital anomaly registry and a national birth registry, we describe prevalence at birth, case characteristics, outcomes, and associated factors of major congenital anomalies.
The validated 118-item pediatric personnel, infrastructure, procedures, equipment, and supplies (PediPIPES) survey tool was used to collect data from 21 provincial center hospitals using the REDCap database platform. All surveys were conducted in-person, with multiple local practioners providing input at each site. Visual verification of infrastructure, equipment, and supplies was completed where circumstances permitted.
Results: In 2015, there were 9.9 major congenital anomalies per 1000 live births (95% CI 9.2-10.6), when congenital infection syndromes are included. Less than 20% of the registry cases were diagnosed prenatally. The provincial prevalence ranged from 2.7-15.7 per 1000 live births. The population with congenital anomalies was significantly smaller, and among singletons, more likely to be preterm when compared to all births.
The PediPIPES indices range from 7.2-14.2. The highest indices were in hospitals in the northern region, though the regional difference was not significant by ANOVA. All facilities do basic surgical procedures — an average of 76% of the 46 surgical procedures are performed at the hospitals surveyed. All but one have anesthetists. Seven facilities do pyloromyotomy and 11 remove foreign bodies from the esophagus or trachea. Ten facilities have pediatric-sized nasogastric tubes, one has chest tubes. 13 have any endoscope.
Conclusions: The birth prevalence of major congenital anomalies is 3-6 times lower than expected based upon worldwide averages of 30-60 per 1000 live births. Further study is needed. Current infrastructure, equipment, supplies and personnel at the provincial center hospitals allow for basic procedures for adults, but essential pediatric supplies are often lacking. As a result, certain life-saving procedures are not available to children. These patterns of procedure, equipment, and supply availability should be further explored to aid in developing a comprehensive nationwide pediatric surgical program and addressing specific gaps. Our data is limited because the survey did not include subspecialty areas such as neurosurgery, or outcome data; future surveys should incorporate such items.
Co-authors: Burmaa Sanjaa MD MS, Sanchin Urjin MD PhD, Sarnai Erdene, Diana Farmer MD, Erdenetsetseg Chuluun MD

Burmaa Dashbal & Sumjidmaa Sainnemkh - Rangeland Management in Mongolia
2017-05-02 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
Mongolian rangelands, which make up about 65 percent of the country’s land, support the livelihood of herders and diverse wildlife populations. However, climate change and rapid increase in the number of livestock, currently estimated to be more than 60 million, are putting pressure on the rangeland and causing increased desertification and extreme climatic events, such as dzud. These changes not only affect the livelihood of herders that depend on the land, but also have broader impact on the country as herders continue to seek better economic opportunities in urban areas. Two recent U.S. government-funded Borlaug Fellowship recipients will discuss their latest research on rangeland management and share their experience during the fellowship.
The Norman E. Borlaug International Agricultural Science and Technology Fellowship program was established in 2004 to promote food security and economic growth by providing training and collaborative research opportunities in fellows from developing and middle-incoming countries. The fellowship runs from 8-12 weeks, and fellows are partnered with a mentor from a U.S. land grant university, research center, or government agency. Mongolia participated in the fellowship for the first time in 2016.

Sandra Vanderwarf - Barcoding the Memory of Humankind: An Effort to Improve Security of Mongolia’s Cultural Heritage Collections
2017-03-21 17:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
In recent years, there have been several cases of unlawful possession and sale of Mongolian cultural heritage–most notoriously of the T. Baatar dinosaur by an American fossil hound, but also, regretfully, of artifacts by staff at Mongolian institutions. In response to these cultural heritage crimes, a strict inventory system has been put in place which requires that all museum collections be inventoried every 4 years, and in some cases every 2 years.

While this repetitive inventory is necessary to prevent theft, it’s costly, time consuming, and potentially damaging to the collections because of repeated handling. The funds, personnel and time spent on inventory could be better spent on research, exhibitions, and other preservation projects if a more efficient inventory system were introduced. Barcodes have become an industry standard in achieving efficient inventory systems and have been shown to drastically reduce the amount of time needed to complete inventories. In this talk, Sandra discusses the challenges and successes of prototyping a barcode inventory system at the National Museum of Mongolia.
The project is co-sponsored by the U.S. Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation and the American Center for Mongolian Studies.

Speaker Series - Bruno Grunau
2017-03-14 17:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
Cold Climate Housing Research Center: Solutions for the Circumpolar North
The Cold Climate Housing Research Center is an industry-based nonprofit corporation created to facilitate the development, use, and testing of energy-efficient, durable, healthy, and cost-effective building technologies for people living in cold climates. The purpose of this presentation is to share our story with the people of Mongolia and find ways we can share our successes.
CCHRC’s three primary programs are the Building Science Research Program, Policy Research, and Sustainable Northern Communities.
The Building Science Research team is made up of engineers and scientists who conduct experiments and provide analysis on building and energy systems in cold climates. Examples of research activities include monitoring the performance of different wall designs and insulation products in various climate zones; gathering data on indoor air quality to test innovative ventilation strategies; and studying the efficiency and payback of renewable energy technologies such as heat pumps and solar thermal. This research is translated into technical reports, journal articles, building manuals, videos, and educational material for contractors and homeowners.
The Policy Research team is made up of economists and analysts who study the energy efficiency of housing and infrastructure in Alaska. Activities include managing and analyzing data, energy modeling, calculating economic analyses of building, retrofit, and energy projects, and making policy recommendations to agencies and officials.
The Sustainable Northern Communities program started in 2008 to address the needs for sustainable housing in rural Alaska. CCHRC designers work with state and federal agencies, housing authorities, and other design and building firms to develop energy efficient, affordable, durable housing. Local residents and stakeholders are included to ensure the designs reflect the culture, environment, and resources of individual communities.
These prototype homes incorporate experimental building and energy technologies—such as super-insulated walls, integrated heating and ventilation systems, innovative water and sanitation solutions, or adjustable foundations—aimed at improving the energy efficiency and affordability of housing. The goal is that these prototypes can be reproduced to provide much-needed housing. CCHRC has completed more than 12 prototype projects throughout all regions of Alaska. CCHRC also provides energy modeling and plan review.
Co-Sponsored by the American Cultural and Information Center, Ulaanbaatar

Speaker Series - Enkhtungalag Chuluunbaatar
2017-02-07 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
Better decision-making through community mapping in Mongolia
Ulaanbaatar, capital city of Mongolia is home to almost half of the country’s population, in which more than 60% live in the ger area. Centralized administrative power, rapid urbanization, economic and political instability calls for a stronger civil society with a vision for long-term, sustainable, and inclusive development. Ger Community Mapping Center sees community mapping as one of the tools to inform and empower local communities and the general public to promote participatory decision-making. Community mapping draws on the implicit knowledge within local communities on everyday issues with long-term consequences.

Speaker Series - William Taylor
2016-11-21 17:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
The Origins of Horse Herding and Transport in the Eastern Steppe
In the dry steppes of eastern Eurasia, domestic horses (E. caballus) provide the economic and cultural foundations of nomadic life. With no written records and sparse archaeological data, the ecological context of the first horse herding and transport – and its role in the formation of nomadic pastoral societies – is poorly understood. Some of the earliest evidence for domestic horses in the region come from small ritual horse burials found at stone monuments and burials known as deer stones and khirigsuurs, which date to the late second millennium BCE. Archaeozoological investigations reveal that these people selectively bred horses, practicing sophisticated herd management and equine dentistry. Analysis of anthropogenic changes to the equine skull indicate that these animals were bridled and used for transport, and may have engaged in early mounted horseback riding. Finally, a precision radiocarbon model suggests a rapid expansion of domestic horse use across Mongolia around ca. 1200 BCE. This expansion occurred in the context of climate amelioration, concurrent with both major changes in ritual practice and the spread of horses to new parts of the continent. These results provide compelling links between the adoption of horseback riding, new ecological opportunities, and the development of mobile pastoralism in the Mongolian steppe. Future research will explore the subject of when and why other domestic animals were adopted in Mongolia, and investigate the effects of horse riding on mobility and interaction across eastern Eurasia.

Speaker Series - Dr. Cristina Bertrand
2016-11-01 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
Learning from Nature

Learning from Nature is a new way of understanding the place of human beings in the world. It is also the first step for inquiring about the laws of the material world, the interrelation of these laws with the human world and its practical application to daily life. Nature, then, will be the Master and its knowledge will give human beings the wisdom they need to be successful in their lives and at the same time, to respect and protect Nature. Nature is the root of Mongolian primitive beliefs. The connection with Nature is direct, and without an understanding it, life would be impossible in the harsh conditions of Mongolia’s deserts, steppes and mountains.
In the beginning, human beings contemplated the Heaven above and the Earth below. They were in the middle. This represents by itself a cosmology which we can also be found in the Chinese book of wisdom, the “Yi Jing”. The methodology of the Yi Jing can be applied to Mongolian Nature to try to understand its hidden laws which offer a gift of wisdom. With my paintings of Mongolian landscapes, I will try to make this wisdom accessible to all who want to learn from Nature.

Speaker Series: Bees, sand and water: healing and an ‘everyday extraordinary’ in contemporary Mongolia
2016-09-13 17:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
For many late 19th and early 20th century thinkers, the modern condition was one synonymous with increasing rationalization and secularization. They predicted a growing ‘disenchantment of the world,’ a banishing of the mystic or mysterious as humans increasingly separated from and sought mastery over the natural world. However, instead of simply a disenchanted ‘modern’ world, what we see are concurrent processes of re-enchantment; within the socio-historical trend toward modernization are spaces re-imbued with wonder and mystery.
While wonderment represents one well-worn path to understanding re-enchantment, others have framed the concept in terms of ordinary, hidden features of life that hold great capacity for transcendence: an everyday extra-ordinary. In this paper, I explore what an ‘everyday extra-ordinary’ might mean with regards to healing in contemporary Mongolia. I employ 3 examples: sand, honey bees and water. Practitioners and patients at mineral springs (rashaan) and their healing centers (rashaan suvilal), sand healing centers (elsen suvilal) and apitherapy clinics described to me feeling a sense of wonder, reverence and magic for the element(s) responsible for the transformation. However, their sense of wonderment was not separate from the value placed in scientific description and proof about how such techniques work.
By considering dis-enchantment (an illumination) and re-enchantment (a re-imbuing with mystery and wonder) as concurrent, interrelated processes, one is positioned to question a modern vs. traditional dichotomy implicit in many narratives that circulate in late- or post-socialist contexts concerning a ‘revival’ or ‘reflorescence’ of ‘traditional’ customs or religiosity.
About the speaker: Elizabeth Turk

Beth is a current doctoral candidate in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge (Selwyn College) researching healing in Mongolia’s “age of the market.” She earned her Master of Arts degree in Sociocultural Anthropology from Columbia University in 2013.
For the past 6 months, Beth has been an ACMS Cultural Heritage Fellow exploring the role of legends, stories and histories surrounding mineral springs (rashaan) as they create meaning for the people who frequent them with the purpose of health improvement or maintenance, relaxation and amusement.
Beth first arrived in Mongolia as a Fulbright scholar in 2010-11 conducting research on shamanic healing rituals in Ulaanbaatar. Since that time, she has been working with the ACMS and would like to thank everyone there for their continued support over the years, especially her language instructor Dr. Tsermaa Tomorbaatar.
Зөгий, элс, рашаан ус өнөөгийн Монголын эмчилгээний гайхамшиг болох нь
XIX зууны сүүл XX зууны эхэн үеийн олон эрдэмтэд орчин үеийн шинжлэх ухаанчаар асуудалд хандаж,шашныг хязгаарлах нь улам ихэснэ гэж үзэж байсан бөгөөд дэлхий ертөнц гайхамшигт итгэхээ больж, ид шид нууцлаг зүйлсийг үгүйсгэж байгалиас хөндийрч, байгальд ноёрхолоо тогтоохыг оролдоно хэмээн тэд таамаглаж байжээ. Гэтэл орчин үед дэлхий ертөнц гайхамшигт итгэхээ больсонгүй харин ч гайхамшигт дахин итгэх процесс нэгэнт явагдаж, орчин үежих нийгэм түүхийн чиг хандлага доторх гайхамшигт оньсого мэт орон зай зэрэг бий болж байгааг бид харж байна.
Гайхах сэтгэл нь гайхамшигт дахин итгэж буйг ойлгох нэг батлагдсан арга зам бол энэхүү ухагдахууныг олон давуу талтай амьдралын энгийн, нууцлаг шинж чанар болох өдөр бүрийн гайхамшиг гэж тодорхойлдог. Энэхүү судалгааны ажилдаа би орчин үеийн Монголд эмчилгээний “өдөр бүрийн гайхамшиг” гэж юу болохыг судалж олохыг хичээлээ. Элс, балт зөгий, рашаан ус гэсэн гурван зүйлийг жишээ болгон авч үзлээ. Рашаан, рашаан сувилал, элсэн сувилал, зөгий эмчилгээний эмчлэгч, эмчлүүлэгч нар өөрчлөлтөд нөлөөлж буй элементүүдийг гайхан бишрэх, ид шидийн мэдрэмж төрж байснаа ярьж байсан юм. Гэхдээ тэдний гайхамшиг гэж үзэх тэрхүү мэдрэмж нь шинжлэх ухааны тодорхойлолтын үнэт зүйл, ийм арга техник хэрхэн яаж ажилладаг тухай нотолгооноос салангид зүйл биш юм.
Байгалиас хөндийрөх (гэгээрэх) болон байгальд дахин татагдах (нууцлаг, гайхалтай зүйлд уусах) байдлыг нэгэн зэрэг, харилцан хамааралтай процесс гэж үзвэл уламжлалт ёс заншил буюу шашин шүтэх байдал “дахин сэргэх” буюу “дахин цэцэглэх” тухай социализмын сүүл буюу дараа үеийн ном зохиолуудад дурьдагдаж байсан орчин үе болон уламжлал хоорондоо зөрчилддөг тухай агуулгыг дахин авч үзэх шаардлагатай болно.
Илтгэгчийн тухай: Элизабет Хантер Турк
Кэмбрижийн Их Сургуулийн (Сэлвин Коллеж) Нийгмийн антропологийн докторант Элизабет Хантер Турк “Зах зээлийн үеийн Монгол дахь эмчилгээний арга зам” сэдвээр судалгаа хийж байгаа бөгөөд хүмүүнлэгийн ухааны магистрын зэргээ 2013 онд Колумбын Их Сургуульд социологи, соёлын антропологийн чиглэлээр хамгаалсан.
Өнгөрсөн 6 сарын хугацаанд АМСТ-ийн соёлын өвийн тэтгэлэгээр өвчнөө эдгээх, биеэ эрүүлжүүлэх, амарч зугаацах зорилгоор тогтмол очдог хүмүүсийн хувьд чухал ач холбогдолтой байдаг рашаан сувиллыг тойрсон домог, түүхийн талаар судалж байна.
Тэрээр анх 2010-11 онд Монгол улсад Фулбрайтын судлаачаар ирж, Улаанбаатарт бөөгийн анагаах зан үйлийн талаар судалгаа хийсэн. Тэр үеэс хойш АМСТ-тэй хамтарч ажиллаж байгаа бөгөөд энэ хугацаанд үргэлж тусалж, дэмжиж байдаг АМСТ-ийнхөө бүх хамт олонд гүн талархал илэрхийлж байна.
This talk will be given in both English and Mongolian.
Co-Sponsored by the American Cultural and Information Center, Ulaanbaatar

Speaker Series - Snow Leopard Conservation in South Gobi - Nadia Mijiddorj & Justine Alexander
2016-09-06 17:30 - 19:00 (Asia/Ulaanbaatar)
The mountain landscapes used by the endangered snow leopard (Panthera uncia) and their prey is increasingly subject to human pressures. Humans are at the centre of major threats to the species, including retaliatory killing, livestock rearing, contribution to loss of prey, and the increasing penetration of development projects into snow leopard areas.
This talk will discuss the status of snow leopards in Mongolia’s South Gobi. More specifically we discuss patterns of conflicts between herders and two carnivore species, snow leopards and wolves, in the Tost mountains. On the basis of these findings, we consider protective measures at the local scale that would benefit snow leopards, and possibly other carnivore and prey species as well.
Nadia Bio:
Nadia Mijiddorj has been engaged with snow leopard conservation since 2002. She is especially interested in understanding how herding communities interact with their local environment in the mountain rangeland ecosystems. Currently she is completing her PhD at the National University of Mongolia.

Justine Bio :
Justine is a conservationist scientist with a strong interest in snow leopard conservation. She works for the Snow Leopard Trust as the Regional Ecologist and is based in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Thank you to the American Corner and the Natsagdorj Library for sponsoring this event.
THESE LECTURES ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Speaker Series - Dr. Kurt Galbreath - Building infrastructure for biodiversity research in Mongolia
2016-08-30 17:30 - 19:00 (Asia/Ulaanbaatar)
Mongolia has a complex landscape that is home to a rich assemblage of plants and animals. This biological diversity represents a unique legacy that sets Mongolia apart from neighboring regions. Though the Mongolian biota remains relatively intact, large-scale forces such as climate change and expanding economic development have potential to negatively impact species. Unfortunately, very little is known about current patterns of distribution and abundance of even the most common and widespread species. Without such a baseline of fundamental information it will be impossible to evaluate the consequences of environmental change in coming years.
Working with colleagues at the National University of Mongolia, we are working to document patterns of biodiversity across Mongolia, with a specific focus on small mammals and their associated parasites (e.g., fleas, ticks, tapeworms, and roundworms). These organisms are diverse, abundant, and excellent indicators of ecosystem health and population structure. Field work during 2015 and 2016 has resulted in collections of more than 2300 mammal specimens and many thousands of parasites from dozens of localities across northern Mongolia. These specimens represent a rich resource for research that is filling large gaps in our understanding of species distributions and host-parasite interactions. All collected specimens are archived in museum collections to provide a resource for future investigations into the evolution and ecology of Mongolian biodiversity. Data for these specimens, including date and locality of collection, are freely available to researchers and the public via the internet, and the specimens themselves provide opportunities for scientists to investigate species responses to climate change, host-parasite co-evolution, emerging infectious diseases, and other topics.
In addition to this specimen-based infrastructure for biodiversity research, we work directly with Mongolian scientists and students to share knowledge and research methods, and to encourage and facilitate investigations on Mongolian biodiversity by Mongolian researchers. In this way we hope to contribute to the human infrastructure for biodiversity research within Mongolia, which will be critical to develop as Mongolia works to respond to the impacts of large-scale ecological perturbations that are expected in coming decades.

About the Speaker: Dr. Kurt Galbreath
Kurt Galbreath is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan. His research focuses on the diversity, evolution, and historical biogeography of small mammals and their associated parasites, including tapeworms and roundworms. He is especially interested in relationships between the mammal and parasite faunas of Asia and North America, and the past climatological and geological events that influenced them.

Co-Sponsored by the American Cultural and Information Center, Ulaanbaatar

Dual Presentation - Dr. Marissa Smith & Dr. Saskia Abrahms- Kavunenko - From Contemporary Mongolian Buddhism to International Research Models
2016-08-23 18:00 - 19:30 (Asia/Ulaanbaatar)
This weeks topics.
Models for International and Interdisciplinary Research in Mongolia: Perspectives from Participant Observation with Historical Considerations
In this talk I will present some examples of successful international and interdisciplinary research collaborations from a participant observation project this past July. As an American cultural anthropologist working with a team of Mongolian, American, Australian, and Western European archaeologists with geological, physical, and biological specializations, I collaboratively confronted issues of international and interdisciplinary collaboration in everyday research activities as well as in recorded interviews with members of the research team. All of the research projects required international collaboration of some kind at some point. Successful collaboration took national differences seriously and set up relations of exchange of valuables in kind rather than a few one-way transfers in contexts of national groups independently pursuing different projects.
Since the Revolution of 1991, the diversity of researchers in terms of nationality working in Mongolia and with Mongolians has greatly increased. However, Mongolia was also the scene of numerous research projects involving international collaboration long before the 1990s, and home to a complex system of academic institutions organizing particular research interests, methodologies, and international collaborations in ways distinct to the country. Considering this history, I account for the importance of the exchange of disciplinary and more general cultural knowledge, particularly via international researchers’ development of Mongolian language skills.
Bio
Marissa Smith, PhD is a cultural anthropologist interested in Mongolian cosmopolitanism, science, and technology, particularly the ways in which these bridge distinctions of urban and rural, central and peripheral at local, national, regional, and global scales. She obtained her PhD from Princeton University in 2015 after completing a dissertation on the relationships of nutag, ovoo, and erdene in the international work of multiethnic employees of the Erdenet Mining Corporation. Her research has been supported by the Princeton Institute of International and Regional Studies and the American Center of Mongolian Studies. Marissa currently teaches cultural anthropology at De Anza College in Cupertino, California.
Light, Enlightenment and Purification: Contemporary Mongolian Buddhism in Ulaanbaatar
Before the socialist period Buddhist institutions were the custodians of enlightenment, reincarnation lineages, and of the knowledge and practices needed to become enlightened. In the 1930s, as the socialist government brutally repressed Buddhism, the term enlightenment (gegeerel) was appropriated to mean secular education (Sneath 2009). As such, enlightenment was no longer under the control of the monasteries and high lamas. It became a pursuit not only available to all Mongolians but morally incumbent upon them.
This talk will discuss how enlightenment in the Buddhist sense, once restricted to temples in the presocialist period, and suppressed, coopted and mystified during socialism (Højer 2009), is now a concept that, although confusing and contested, is available to many urban Mongolians. It will describe how Mongolian ideas about enlightenment are often related to ideas about purification, and, with the introduction of countless New Religious Movements and Christianity, is no longer simply the domain of high lamas within Buddhist institutions. The city now contains, amongst a plethora of others, several vegetarian New Religious Movements offering purification through meditation and the eating of vegetarian or ‘white foods’ (tsagaan hool).
Bio.
Dr. Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany. She is currently a fellow at the American Centre for Mongolian Studies.

Speaker Series - Dr. Wayne Lee & Dr. Günhan Börekçi- comparative military history of Mongolia
2016-07-05 17:30 - 19:00 (Asia/Ulaanbaatar)
Tuesday July 5th, 5:30-7:00 pm
American Corner, Natsagdorj Library, Ulaanbaatar

Comparing Strategies of Conquest and Control in the Sown, the Steppe, and the Wilderness: Understanding Landscapes and Logistics
Like most army planners, military historians tend to focus on conquest. They spend less time thinking about how a conquering society then manages or controls those territories or peoples thereafter. Furthermore, most military historians examine conquest by and of sedentary agricultural societies. There are key exceptions, but in general few examine the processes of conquest or control on the steppe or in the wilderness. This paper compares those three types of landscapes and their impact on the logistics of conquest and control, using 18th-century North America and the Mongol conquests as examples of the special problems posed in the steppe and in the “wilderness.” This is still an exploratory work, and I hope to learn from the audience more about how the steppe landscape functions and how it has been shaped by human activity, and how it in turn shapes the strategies of conquest and control.
Mounted Archers in War: The Ottoman Imperial Cavalry and their Training Exercises for Battles in the Age of Gunpowder Revolution
From the fifteenth century onward, Ottoman authors produced several important works on various aspects of military horsemanship and mounted archery. These works, some of which were based on the Mamluk furûsiyya literature, provide us highly valuable insights not only on the development of horseback archery in world history, but also on the critical question of how the Ottomans actually prepared their imperial cavalry forces for battles in an age when land warfare had been transformed by the so-called Gunpowder Revolution. In this context, by examining a select group of hitherto unpublished Ottoman military treatises and manuals, this paper discusses the training methods and related cavalry exercises utilized by the Ottomans so as to perfect their horsemanship and mounted archery skills and tactics for the new type of warfare in which artillery and firearms played an increasingly vital role in defining the outcomes in the battlefields.
Bio:
Wayne E. Lee is the Dowd Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, where he also chairs the Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense. He is the author of Waging War: Conflict, Culture, and Innovation in World History (2016), Barbarians and Brothers: Anglo-American Warfare, 1500-1865 (2011), and Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina (2001), as well as two edited volumes on world military history (both 2011) and many articles and book chapters. He has an additional career as an archaeologist, having done field work in Greece, Albania, Hungary, Croatia, and Virginia, including co-directing two field projects, and was a principal author and co-editor of Light and Shadow: Isolation and Interaction in the Shala Valley of Northern Albania, winner of the 2014 Society for American Archaeology’s book award. He is just finishing a year as the Harold K. Johnson Visiting Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army War College. Prior to graduate school, Dr. Lee served in the U.S. Army as a combat engineer.
Günhan Börekçi is an assistant professor of history and currently works as a faculty member at İstanbul Şehir University. His main areas of research include early modern Ottoman political, military and social history, 17th-century global crisis, and Turkish archery and horsemanship. In addition to his numerous articles and encyclopedia entries on Ottoman history, he has published with Ahmet Arslantürk a facsimile edition of Feridun Ahmed Bey’s illustrated chronicle, Nüzhet-i Esrârü’l-Ahyâr der Ahbâr-ı Sefer-i Sigetvar [Topkapı Palace Museum Library, MS Hazine 1339], on Süleyman the Magnificent’s last Hungarian campaign in 1566 (Istanbul, 2012). His new book on Sultan Mehmed III’s imperial campaign against the Habsburgs in 1596 is forthcoming in Turkish under the title, Macaristan’da bir Osmanlı Padişahı [An Ottoman Sultan in Hungary].
This is a free event provided with support from the United States Department of Education and the Natsagdorj Library
