Subject: This Month in Mongolian Studies - December 2022

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In this Issue:

ACMS Announcements 

ACMS Sponsored Programs and Events

Vacancies, Scholarships, and Fellowships

Grants and Calls for Papers

New Resources

Other News and Events

Recent Books

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.org
This 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!

 
ACMS Announcements, News and Media References

ACMS FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN

As announced in our previous newsletter the ACMS has opened applications to our own fellowships. 

The fellowship programs are: Field Research Fellowship, Library Fellowship and the Intensive Summer Language Program Fellowship. As usual the key eligibility is to be a U.S. citizen for Field Research Fellowship and Library Fellowship. For the Intensive Summer Language Program the applicant must have an intermediate level of proficiency of Mongolian. Learn more about the fellowship programs by using the links below:


The deadline for each fellowship application is February 15, 2023

For inquiries about the Field Research Fellowship and the Library Fellowship please contact: baigalmaa@mongoliacenter.org

For inquiries about the Intensive Summer Language Program Fellowship please contact: tsermaa@mongoliacenter.org

To look up general information for our fellowships please visit: https://www.mongoliacenter.org/fellowships

MONGOLIA FIELD SCHOOL 2023 Applications are OPEN

We are also announcing the MONGOLIA FIELD SCHOOL 2023 applications to be open. The Mongolia Field School offers an educational travel experience blending academic insights and discussions with travel experiences that allow participants to interact with local people and locations off the usual tourist track. 

All Field School courses begin in Ulaanbaatar with an orientation to Mongolian culture, history, language and contemporary issues. Participants will meet with their instructors and classmates from Mongolia and around the world, and begin their learning journey. Class groups will then travel to selected sites across Mongolia where they will pursue field research, gaining an understanding of the topics studied in the context of the landscapes and people in the regions visited. All participants will have the opportunity to see important sites in Mongolia and participate in tourist activities, while also gaining the unique insights offered by their course leaders and the local people and officials encountered during the field studies.

For 2023, ACMS will be organizing three courses for the Mongolia Field School. The course titles are:

  • Discovering The Sonic World of The Mongolian Countryside: June 2 - June 15
  • Climate Change and Public Health: What does climate change mean for the people of Mongolia?: June 19 - July 4
  • Mongolian Buddhism, Nature, and Conservation: June 19 - July 4
The Priority and Final Application Deadlines are:

Priority Deadline: March 1, 2023
Final program application deadline: April 30, 2023

TUITION FEE:

International participants - 3500 $

Mongolian Participants - 1.200.000 ₮

To learn more about the Mongolia Field School 2023 and to apply, please visit:

https://www.mongoliacenter.org/mfs23
Library Workshop

2022 continues to be a year of bringing our workshops and projects into the classrooms and out on the fields for the ACMS. Our 2020 Library Fellow Dr. Saruul-Erdene Myagmar finally arrived in Mongolia to carry out his ACMS Library project - the Library Workshop. This workshop was a continuation of a November 2021 Online Library Workshop jointly hosted by Dr. Saruul-Erdene Myagmar and Dr. Enerel Dambiinyam, and organized by the ACMS. The current workshop began on November 1, 2022 in Ulaanbaatar at the American Corner, housed in the Natsagdorj UB Public Library (the same Library where ACMS office is located) 

and went on for 4 weeks in an in-person form. The workshop covered MARC 21 format in depth and Name Authority Records (NAR) with practical assignments. 37 librarians and catalogists from the Mongolian State University for Education, the Natsagdorj UB Public Library, Defense National University of Mongolia and other universities and schools of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia participated in the workshop. 

The key advantage of this workshop was in the instructor - Dr. Saruul-Erden Myagmar is a librarian of the The Library of Congress of the U.S. and an expert on Mongolian texts, who has a PhD in Philology. Therefore, the librarians and catalogists, who participated in this workshop were able to learn issues related to Mongolian entries on Koha Library Software and compare best ways to record entries in Mongolian language. 

This workshop was covered by Mongolian online news media, Gogo.mn. This news story can be seen here:

Mongolian Language Teaching

Mongolian language program remains popular. Besides from individual online and in-person learners, we are teaching Mongolian to groups of students from the U.S. Currently we have classes set up for participants of the Princeton in Asia program in Mongolia.
Pictured are two Fulbright scholars, who are doing research at the National University of Mongolia and the Mongolian State University of Education. The Fulbright program is a U.S. Department of State funded program that supports scholars from the U.S. abroad and students other countries allowing them to study at a U.S. university.

Changes in ACMS Staff

The ACMS' Library and Media Coordinator Gantungalag "Ganaa" Tumurkhuyag has recently resigned from the ACMS. Ganaa was a diligent and versatile team member and had worked with us for nearly a decade. Her recent achievements at ACMS were: MARC 21 format and Name Authority Records (NAR) workshop with ACMS Library Fellow Dr. Saruul-Erdene Myagmar, New ACMS Library Website with ACMS Library Website based on LibGuides with Fellow Liz Gartley, and ACMS Library Catalogue transition to Koha Library Software. These are but a few of her contributions to ACMS at the forefront of numerous other activities and objectives including our social media management, content generation and e-learning platform.


The ACMS team and board wishes her health, prosperity and happiness in the next chapters of her life. 

ACMS Sponsored Programs and Events
Cultural Heritage Colloquium Q4 online workshop took place on November 25. The workshop topic was on "Cultural Heritage: Paint Damage and Causes" and lead by by our AFCP Project fellow, conservator, Dr. Angaragsuren Odkhuu and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Japanese Society for Promotion of Science Dr. Sungwook Ryu.

The workshop is available for viewing on our Facebook. Click the button below to watch.


Our VSS November episode is up on our Facebook page. As our guest speaker we had Mary Rossabi, a teacher and translator, who spoke about her recent publication "Master of Mongolia: A. D. Simukov". During the talk we experienced some connection issues on the Meta side, therefore we have two links:

We will upload a whole video on our YouTube channel
Visit our YouTube channel to see more series of the Virtual Speaker and Virtual Panel Series, as well as our videos on Cultural Heritage Project, interviews with our Field Research Fellows and more.



Upcoming ACMS events:

  • December 22, 2022: Language teaching methodology webinar "Teaching language through function and culture"
  • December 27, 2022: VSS December - Tsermaa Nyamdavaa "Implementing community-based natural resource management for protecting the Buffer Zone rangelands at Hustai National Park, Mongolia"
  • January 7, 2023: VSS January - Raj Deep "Gauging the Importance of Electoral Reforms in Evolving Procedural Democracy in Mongolia"

We are working to bring back in-person speaker events, we will be putting these events up as more in-person speaker become available. If you would like to speak in-person for an ACMS Speaker event please email buyandelger@mongoliacenter.org
Special section
Obituary

On November 14, 2022 the Mongolian studies community lost one of its champions. Widely known as Choimaa bagsh [teacher] for his tele-lessons on Mongolian script and his efforts to promote the reinstatement of Mongolian script as official writing of Mongolia, Professor Choimaa Sharav made invaluable contributions to Mongolian studies through his research and teaching. Professor Choimaa published a number of specialized dictionaries of Mongolian language, and one on Tibetan. He is the author of many Mongolian language and Mongolian script textbooks and workbooks. One of his most important works is the "Comparative study of the texts of the Secret history of the Mongols and the Golden Chronicles by Luvsandanzan" of 2003, for which he was conferred Doctor of Philology. 
He taught Mongolian script, Historical grammar of Mongolian, Modern Mongolian, Tibetan, Source criticism, Study of the Secret history of the Mongols to both graduate and undergraduate level students at the National University of Mongolia. He had foreign students, as well, many of them in Mongolian studies. For his efforts and contributions made in Mongolian science and culture Professor Choimaa was declared "Teacher of the People" in 2017. 

Rest in Peace

Vacancies, Scholarship, and Fellowships
Vacancy: Assistant Professor of Asian Studies

The Department of Asian Studies in the College of Arts, Languages, and Letters at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa invites applicants for a 9-month, tenure-track, full-time assistant professorship, to begin Fall 2023, pending availability of funds.
Full-time, tenure track position in Asian Studies to begin Fall 2023, pending position clearance and availability of funds. Salary commensurate with qualifications and experience. The University of Hawai’i at Manoa (UHM) offers interdisciplinary BA and MA degree programs and Graduate Certificates in the study of China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Inter-Asia. The Department of Asian Studies seeks a collegial and talented colleague to contribute to its new concentration on Asian international affairs. This concentration combines the interdisciplinary, Asia-centric perspectives provided by area studies with policy-relevant research. For more information, see https://manoa.hawaii.edu/asianstudies/

Minimum Qualifications
  • Earned PhD in a humanities, social sciences, or related interdisciplinary field with emphasis on Asia from a college or university of recognized standing (ABDs will be considered, all requirements for doctoral degree must be completed by August 2023);
  • Demonstrated expertise in one or more areas of the contemporary Indo-Pacific region (Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and/or South Asia) and in the fields of traditional and/or non-traditional security (e.g., issues of environment, health, food, cybersecurity, transnational crime, economic security, etc.);
  • Research competence in an Asian language and evidence of active research agenda in Asia;
  • Ability to develop and teach innovative interdisciplinary courses at the undergraduate level and core courses in the MAIA graduate program;
  • Demonstrated ability to work effectively and collegially with students, faculty, staff and administration.

Desirable Qualifications:
  • Research that examines the drivers or effects of the rise of China and/or India in the Indo-Pacific region;
  • Expertise in policy-relevant areas of research and/or experience engaging with policy makers;
  • Demonstrated ability to support the university’s mission of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Visit the following website to see detailed instruction on how to apply:

https://www.schooljobs.com/careers/hawaiiedu/jobs/3749401/assistant-professor-asian-studies-82501
Vacancy: Postdoctoral Associate in East Asian Studies

The Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University seeks applications for the CEAS Postdoctoral Associates Program. The appointment period is from July 1st, 2023 – June 30th, 2025.

Inaugurated in the 1999-2000 academic year, the Postdoctoral Associates Program at the Council on East Asian Studies provides promising young scholars specializing in East Asia two years at Yale University in which they can prepare their dissertations for publication, pursue research projects, gain experience teaching advanced seminars to undergraduates, and utilize Yale’s resources. Proposals with single region or transregional emphasis on China, Japan, and/or Korea are welcome.

For more information and complete application requirements, please visit https://ceas.yale.edu/academics/postdoctoral-program.

Qualifications
Requirements: Ph.D. awarded between 2020 and June 15, 2023 in any field specializing in East Asia; remain in residence for duration of appointment; during appointment revise doctoral dissertation or complete research project resulting in publishable manuscript; and teach one undergraduate course for majors in East Asian studies. Proposals with single region or transregional emphasis on China, Japan, and/or Korea are welcome.

Application Instructions
To apply, please submit cover letter, CV, dissertation abstract (250 words), course proposal, statement regarding intended research project (no more than 2500 words), writing sample (no more than 30 pages), and 3 letters of recommendation by Friday, January 6, 2023. The writing sample can be a dissertation chapter, journal article, or other such academic paper. Letters of recommendation must be uploaded via a dossier service or from the recommenders directly. Please be sure that your recommenders address your teaching abilities in their letters. Names of references will not be accepted in lieu of confidential letters of recommendation. No late applications will be accepted.

All application materials must be submitted online through Interfolio: http://apply.interfolio.com/115393


Grants and Calls for Paper
Nomadic Ethics and Intercultural Dialogue

The International Institute for the Study of Nomadic Civilizations (IISNC), in collaboration with the Commission on Nomadic Peoples, the National University of Mongolia, the Mongolian Anthropological Association and UNESCO is organizing an International Academic Conference entitled Nomadic Ethics and Intercultural Dialogue, to be held on 22-23 June 2023 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Proposed themes by the organizers, note that the organizers may add more themes as more proposal come in:
  • Environmental ethics of nomadic peoples
  • Nomadic moral philosophies
  • Nomadic cultures and their transformation
  • Intercultural dialogue and peacebuilding
  • Cultural rights and human rights
  • Ethics and education
  • Political construction and its impacts
Submit your abstracts using this form

Deadline January 15, 2023

For more details see this post

If you have any questions, please contact the conference organisers:

Ariell Ahearn: ariell.ahearn@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Byambabaatar Ichinkhorloo: byambabaatar@unesco-iisnc.com

Call for Paper: Graduate Student Conference on Сentral Asia

The Davis Center is planning a graduate student conference devoted to Central Asia in April 2023. We invite paper proposals from graduate students at any stage, including master’s students, working on a topic related to Central Asia within any discipline. The conference will allow U.S.-based graduate students to present their original and ongoing work in a professional environment and to receive feedback from peers and experts within the field.

Proposals may include topics related to the following themes:

  • In the Shadow of Big Neighbors: Central Asian Interactions with Russia and China
  • Political, Economic, and Social Transformations
  • Beliefs and Values: Continuity and Change

Interested graduate students should apply online by December 31, 2022. Submissions must include:

  • A working title and brief (no more than 300 words) description of your paper’s central argument;
  • Biographical information including your full name, institutional affiliation, graduate program of study, and current year in that program;
  • Travel and logistical preferences.
Notification of acceptance will be no later than January 25, 2023. If accepted, participants must submit their registration form accepting their participation by February 22, 2023. Final papers must be received by April 1, 2023.

Submit proposals and get details at:

https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/events/graduate-student-conference-central-asia
Call for Papers: 6th Oxford Interdisciplinary Desert Conference
 
School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford
 
Date: 16 & 17 March 2023
Location: School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford. The School of Geography and the Environment is located in the University Science Area, South Parks Road, Oxford
Subject Fields: 

Deserts and drylands encompass 40% of the globe and shelter two billion people. Arid regions are home to the major religions, valued natural resources, scarcity, wealth and poverty, and face issues that dominate our time. Geopolitics, climate change, development, land degradation, population growth and conflict are issues that have relevance beyond any singular department or perspective.

The Oxford Desert Conference brings together academics and non-academics who research, work and live across the world's desert and semi-desert regions for two days of vibrant talks, presentations, panels and networking opportunities. It is a truly interdisciplinary event which allows social and physical scientists to exchange views, develop lasting collaborations and make a positive global impact.

Registration
To register, please complete the online form.

After you have submitted this form, please pay your conference fees via the Oxford Desert Conference 2023 webpage on the Oxford University Stores website.

Submit your paper abstracts by 10 January 2023.


For queries please contact: 
Dr Troy Sternberg
Tel: +44 (0)1865 285070
Email: deserts@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Call for Papers: IMC Leeds, 3-6 July 2023

Chinggisid Ripples: Networks and Entanglements and the Mongol Impact

Organisers:
Dr Geoff Humble (University of Leeds)
Dr Márton Vér (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)

The Mongol imperial project has recently received a relatively sympathetic characterisation,
reflecting an optimistic view of proto-globalising linkages and cultures in contact. This may
obscure the extractive lineage-based aristocratic frameworks of Chinggisid rule, and the
massive disruption of such large-scale warfare. It nonetheless remains clear that the impact of the ‘Mongol moment’ was felt right across and well beyond the territories held by the Great Khans.

These sessions will draw out the broad range of new lineages and linkages disrupted by or
emerging from the convulsions of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, aiming to explore
the degree to which Chinggisid expansion marked a departure from, or evolution of, previous
ways of life across and beyond the conquest space.
We would welcome papers addressing themes such as:

● Lineage construction and recording
● Ranges, limits, stability, and fragility of networks
● Network constraints, rules, and social roles
● Prosopographical techniques and limitations
● Connective infrastructure, such as the jam postal system
● Permissions and paizas
● The Pax Mongolica, intra-ulus conflict
● Entangled and overlapping structures, from the Central Secretariat to the darughachi
● Religious networks; orders, pilgrims, advisers
● Envoys, agents, ortoqs and traders
● Nökör, anda, atabeg and other formalised relationships
● Qatuns, wives and gendered reading
● Böge ‘shamans’ and ritual status groups
● Material forms (ceramics, textiles)
● Settlement patterns
● Technological spread and change
● Other exciting topics!

Please email humblegeoff@gmail.com with enquiries or proposals. Abstracts should be
around 200 words and sent by 15 August 2022.

Coronavirus restrictions permitting, the IMC organisers are planning to host an in-person
gathering in Leeds, with virtual involvement possible for those who are unable to attend in
person.

https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2023/
Call for Papers: Religion and Society Special Issue Proposal

Editors:Simon Coleman, University of Toronto, Sondra L. Hausner, University of Oxford

Religion and Society has been receiving increasing numbers of excellent suggestions for special issues. We have therefore decided to invite proposals to be sent to us by a given deadline each year, in order to select the most appropriate special section for the journal. The pool of proposals will be considered by our editorial board, and decisions sent back to proposers as swiftly as possible. This arrangement will apply for the first time for our 2025 issue. Our timetable for proposals is as follows:

May 1, 2024: submission of proposal to Religion and Society editors (no fixed number of papers, but maximum 50,000 words)

June 1, 2024: decisions sent out, including choice of the proposal to be published

June-December 2024: external refereeing and redrafting process, with submission of final proofreading by January 2025

The format of the proposal sent to Religion and Society should be as follows:

• Description of the special issue, including summary of its fit with Religion and Society, and assurance that all papers exist in draft form, fully ready to be send to reviewers (max. 500 words)

• Abstracts of all papers (max. 400 words each)

• Bios of special issue editors and all other contributors (max. 100 words each)

• List of potential reviewers for each paper, and assurance that special issue editors will work to obtain external reviews to fit with deadlines

Submission

The Religion and Society style guide is based on The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS). Please note that the journal uses US punctuation and spelling, following Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.

Please refer to the Style Guide online:

https://journals.berghahnbooks.com/_uploads/air-rs/religion-and-society_style_guide.pdf

Please submit articles, reviews, and other contributions as Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format (rtf) files by e-mail to the editors:

Simon Coleman at simon.coleman@utoronto.ca and 
Sondra Hausner at sondra.hausner@theology.ox.ac.uk


Grant: Princeton Library Research Grant

The 2023-2024 application is now open and will close at 12pm EST on January 17, 2023.

Each year, the Friends of the Princeton University Library offers short-term Library Research Grants to promote scholarly use of the Princeton University Library special collections. Applications will be considered for scholarly use of archives, manuscripts, rare books, and other rare and unique holdings in Special Collections, including Mudd Library; as well as rare books in Marquand Library of Art and Archaeology, and in the East Asian Library (Gest Collection).

These grants, which have a value of up to $4,800 plus transportation costs, are meant to help defray expenses incurred in traveling to and residing in Princeton during the tenure of the grant. The length of the grant will depend on the applicant’s research proposal, but is ordinarily between two and four weeks. Library Research Grants can be used from May of the year they are awarded through the following April.

Visit the grant website to see instruction on how to apply:

https://library.princeton.edu/special-collections/friends-princeton-university-library-research-grants

New Resources
Interesting digital resource we discovered in November, 2022:
  • "Mongolia Journals" - by the Mongolian Academy of Sciences has 7 Mongolian scientific journals, and 1,144 articles and others, all available as full text. 
  • "Treasury of Lives" -The Treasury of Lives is a biographical encyclopedia of Tibet, Inner Asia, and the Himalayan region founded in 2007.
  • "Online Dictionaries and Full-text Search of Mongolian Languages and Written Manchu" - It was created by Dr. Hitoshi Kuribayashi (栗林均) and his team at the Center for Northeast Asian Studies (東北アジア研究センター) of the Tohoku University in Japan. The database has been online since 2017
Member contribution publications:
(If you would like to announce your publication, please reach out to us at info@mongoliacenter.org. Make sure you put Member contribution publication in the Subject field of your email.)


Selected scholarly articles published in November, 2022:
Other News and Events

FEATURE ARTICLES AND EVENTS ON MONGOLIAN STUDIES
Month of Cultural Creativity
/Eagle.mn/ November 1. The Ministry of Culture and its affiliated agencies, as well as artists and private entities are organizing the Month of Cultural Creativity, which begins today /November 1/. This year 12 industries related to culture are organizing 140 events and programs in Ulaanbaatar and 600 events and programs in the provinces. Last year 180 organization organized 167 events and programs with the participation of 2072 artists, providing cultural services to 22 thousand in-person attendees and 1.7 million online attendees. Read more in Mongolian
Mongolia awards the Order of Chinggis Khaan on the Mongolian Pride Day
/Montsame & Xinhua/ November 24. On the occasion of the 860th Anniversary of the birth of Chinggis Khaan, an awards ceremony to confer the Supreme Decoration of the Mongolian State, the Order of Chinggis Khaan was held. The Order of Chinggis Khaan is awarded to Dr. Jack Weatherford, an American researcher, in recognition of his valuable contribution to the development of Chinggis Khaan studies and to Academician Dr. Prof. Dorjgotov Dechingungaa for his significant contribution to the environmental and climate studies of the soil and lands. Xinhua also notes that this was the first time Mongolia awared this Order to a foreigner, Jack Weatherford. Read more from Montsame from Xinhua
"The Issues Related to Nomadic Cultures and Civilization of Central and Inner Asia" Symposium
/IINCS/ November 23. The International Institute for the Study of Nomadic Civilizations under the auspices of the UNESCO and the representatives of member Governments convened in the Library of the National University of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar on November 23, 2022. Scholars from Mongolia, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan made presentations and discussed their researche. Read more in Mongolia
Borjigin Khuur Repatriated
/Eagle.mn/ November 12. A XVII century Borjigin khuur was repatriated to Mongolia and give to the Theatre Museum of Mongolia. The instrument left the country in 2004 and the repatriation effort was spearheaded by Dr. Ganpurev D. Tsagaagchuud, member of the State University of Arts and Culture's Cultural Studies faculty, Head of Mongolian Ethnic Music Bureau and Ethnic music researcher. The instrument was restored and played on by fiddler, Shinetsog D. (The news report does not say where the instrument was repatriated from)  Read more in Mongolian
Discover the art and culture of nomads at the National Museum of Qatar
/Gulf News/ November 2. The National Museum of Qatar has opened the exhibition “On the Move” which explores the pastoral lives of the nomadic peoples of Central Sahara, Qatar and Mongolia. The exhibition runs until January 14, 2023, in Doha, Qatar, highlighting the art and culture of these tribes who were constantly on the move tending to their herds. With the collaboration of the National Museum of Mongolia, the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, and Austria’s Weltmuseum Vienna, among others institutions, the National Museum of Qatar is also exhibiting a fascinating range of objects from its own permanent collections. Read more
Recent Books

"Drylands Facing ChangeEdited ByAngela Kronenburg García, Tobias Haller, Han van Dijk, Cyrus Samimi, Jeroen Warner

Price: £96.00 (Hardback & Ebook)

This edited volume examines the changes that arise from the entanglement of global interests and narratives with the local struggles that have always existed in the drylands of Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia/Inner Asia.

Changes in drylands are happening in an overwhelming manner. Climate change, growing political instability, and increasing enclosures of large expanses of often common land are some of the changes with far-reaching consequences for those who make their living in the drylands. At the same time, powerful narratives about the drylands as ‘wastelands’ and their ‘backward’ inhabitants continue to hold sway, legitimizing interventions for development, security, and conservation, informing re-emerging frontiers of investment (for agriculture, extraction, infrastructure), and shaping new dryland identities. The chapters in this volume discuss the politics of change triggered by forces as diverse as the global land and resource rush, the expansion of new Information and Communication Technologies, urbanization, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the spread of violent extremism. While recognizing that changes are co-produced by differently positioned actors from within and outside the drylands, this volume presents the dryland’s point of view. It therefore takes the views, experiences, and agencies of dryland dwellers as the point of departure to not only understand the changes that are transforming their lives, livelihoods, and future aspirations, but also to highlight the unexpected spaces of contestation and innovation that have hitherto remained understudied.

This edited volume will be of much interest to students, researchers, and scholars of natural resource management, land and resource grabbing, political ecology, sustainable development, and drylands in general.


Angela Kronenburg García is an F.R.S.-FNRS Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLouvain, Belgium, and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Padua, Italy.

Tobias Haller is a Professor at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

Han van Dijk is a Professor at the Sociology of Development and Change Group at Wageningen University, The Netherlands.

Cyrus Samimi is a Professor of Climatology at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, where he also serves as Vice Dean of Digital Solutions in the Cluster of Excellence Africa Multiple.

Jeroen Warner is a Senior Associate Professor of Crisis and Disaster Studies at Wageningen University, The Netherlands.

"The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East" by Nicholas Morton

Price: $35 (Hardcover)

How the Mongol invasions of the Near East reshaped the balance of world power in the Middle Ages

For centuries, the Crusades have been central to the story of the medieval Near East, but these religious wars are only part of the region’s complex history. As The Mongol Storm reveals, during the same era the Near East was utterly remade by another series of wars: the Mongol invasions.

In a single generation, the Mongols conquered vast swaths of the Near East and upended the region’s geopolitics. Amid the chaos of the Mongol onslaught, long-standing powers such as the Byzantines, the Seljuk Turks, and the crusaders struggled to survive, while new players such as the Ottomans arose to fight back. The Mongol conquests forever transformed the region, while forging closer ties among societies spread across Eurasia.

This is the definitive history of the Mongol assault on the Near East and its enduring global consequences.


Nicholas Morton is an associate professor at Nottingham Trent University. The author or editor of nine books, including The Field of Blood, Morton lives in Nottinghamshire, UK.
"Silk Road Traces: Studies on Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia" edited bLi Tang, Dietmar W. Winkler

Price: €44,90 (Hardcover)

This volume includes cutting-edge research on the spread of Syrian Christianity along the Silk Road from the 6th to the 14th century. Recent archaeological discoveries and excavations of ancient and medieval Christian sites in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and China shed new light on Christian communities in Central Asia, China and Mongolia. Scholars from such fields as archaeology, manuscript studies, history and theology have contributed, offering new insights into the influence of Syriac Christianity along the Silk Roads.

Li Tang is Senior Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Christian East (ZECO), University of Salzburg/Austria.

Dietmar W. Winkler is Head of the Department of Biblical Studies and Ecclesiastical History, and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of the Christian East (ZECO), University of Salzburg/Austria

"Transnationalism in East and Southeast Asian Comics Art" edited by John A. Lent, Wendy Siuyi Wong, Benjamin Wai–ming Ng

Price: €119.99 (Hardcover)

This book explores various aspects of transnationalism and comics art in six East Asian and seven Southeast Asian countries/territories. The 14 richly illustrated chapters embrace comics, cartoons, and animation relative to offshore production, transnational ownership, multinational collaboration, border crossings of comics art creators and characters, expansion of overseas markets, cartoonists in political exile, colonial underpinnings, adaptation of foreign styles and formats, representation of other cultures, and more.

Using case studies, historical accounts, descriptive overviews, individual artists’ profiles, and representational analyses, and fascinatingly told through techniques as document use, interviews, observation, and textual analyses, the end result is a thorough, interesting, and compact volume on transnationalism and comics art in East and Southeast Asia.

John A. Lent is a professor emeritus with 50 years of teaching and is founding publisher/editor-in-chief of International Journal of Comic Art. He is the author or editor of 85 books and a pioneer in studies of Asian and Caribbean mass communication, popular culture, comic art and animation, and development communication.

Wendy Siuyi Wong is a professor in the Department of Design at York University in Toronto, Canada. She is the author of Hong Kong Comics: A History of Manhua (2002), published by Princeton Architectural Press, and her latest book, entitled The Disappearance of Hong Kong in Comics, Advertising and Graphic Design (2018), published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Benjamin Waiming Ng is professor of Japanese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He researches and teaches Japanese history, Japan–Hong Kong relations, and Japanese popular culture. He is the author of Japanese Popular Culture in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Commercial Press, 2015).

"The Precious Summary: A History of the Mongols from Chinggis Khan to the Qing Dynasty" by Sagang Sechen. Translated by Johan Elverskog

Preorder price: $24.64 (e=Ebook) $140.00 (Hardcover) $35.00 (Paperback)

The Mongols, their khans, and the empire they built and ruled in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries exert an enduring fascination. Caricatured as a marauding horde that ravaged surrounding peoples, in reality the Mongols created institutions, trading networks, economic systems, and intellectual and technological exchanges that shaped the early modern world. However, the centuries after the waning of Mongol power remain overlooked in comparison to the days of Chinggis Khan.

The Precious Summary is the most important work of Mongolian history on the three-hundred-year period before the rise of the Manchu Qing dynasty. Written by Sagang Sechen in 1662, shortly after the Mongols’ submission to the Qing, it chronicles the fall of the Yuan dynasty in China, the Mongol-Oirat wars, and the revival of Mongol power during the reign of Dayan Khan in the sixteenth century. Sagang Sechen’s masterful account spans Buddhist cosmology, Chinggis Khan, the post-Yuan Mongols, Chinese history, and the Mongols’ conversion to Buddhism—and throughout, it attempts to come to terms with the new Manchu state. Featuring extensive and accessible annotations and explanations of historical context, Johan Elverskog’s translation of the Precious Summary offers invaluable perspective on Inner Asian and Chinese history, Mongolian historiography, and the history of Buddhism in Asia.


Sagang Sechen was born in 1604 into an important aristocratic family in Ordos in what is now the southwest part of Inner Mongolia. He distinguished himself in both military and bureaucratic service, including advising his local ruler to submit to the Manchu Qing dynasty in 1635. Little is known about his later life.
Johan Elverskog is Dedman Family Distinguished Professor, professor of religious studies, and, by courtesy, professor of history at Southern Methodist University. His books include The Buddha’s Footprint: An Environmental History of Asia (2020).



American Center for Mongolian Studies, 642 Williams Hall, 255 S. 36th St, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States
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