A Report on the Society’s 60th Annual Meeting from September 2021
By Delgerjargal Uvsh, January 6, 2022
The 2021 Annual Meeting and Panels of The Mongolia Society was held on Saturday, Sept. 18, 2021, in the Basile Auditorium at Herron School of Art and Design, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. It was the 60th anniversary meeting and was jointly sponsored by The Mongolia Society, Herron School of Art and Design, Department of Central Eurasian Studies (Indiana University, Bloomington), Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center, and IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute. The panels were held in person with opportunities for participants to attend online.
The event started with a formal opening of an exhibition of art by Herron School of Art and Design’s Mongolian artist-in-residence, Tuguldur Yondonjamts (website). The exhibition was named “Separated Geography from a Poem.” Mr. Tuguldur gave a public lecture in Eskenazi Hall on Friday, Sept. 17, at 5:30 p.m., followed by an opening reception until 8 p.m. And interesting note is that Tuguldur Yondonjamts's exhibition was based on the translation of the Mongolian epic Khan Kharangui by American linguist John Hangin Gombojab and published by the Mongolia Society in 1989.
In her remarks, Dr. Tsultem of IUPUI noted that this exhibition allowed active engagement between the artist and the students and that she was finally able to offer a course about Mongolian art at the Herron School. This was in fact the first time in the U.S. that a course focused on Mongolian art has been offered.
Saturday’s activities started with remarks by the Mongolia Society President Amb. Pamela Slutz, Prof. William Potter, Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs, Herron School of Art and Design, and Mr. Telmuun Bayarsaikhan, Third Secretary for Education, Culture, Science, and Environmental Affairs at the Mongolian Embassy. Dr. Zayabaatar Dalai, Director of the Institute for Mongolian Studies at National University of Mongolia, addressed the audience through a video greeting.
Dr. Manduhai Buyandelger, Professor of Anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, delivered the keynote speech, “Time and Transformation of Mongolian Women: Revolutions, Representations, and Experiences.” In her speech, Prof. Buyandelger posited that our understanding of what it means to be a proper man or woman – that is, gender – is temporal, contested, and heterogeneous. She asked how the notion of what a women is has transformed throughout the last century in Mongolia under local as well as international influences. Her talk weaved together larger histories of revolutions, local and global feminisms, and capitalism with individual stories of women to illustrate this change in a plurality of representations and lived experiences.
For more on this story please see our Mongol Survey, Issue 42 (PDF).
A livestream recording of the meeting’s Academic Panels is available here: Annual Meeting Livestream.
The meeting schedule, including panel and speaker information, is available here: Annual Meeting Schedule.
The Mongolia Society’s President Amb. Pamela Slutz presents books and the Society’s publications to Telmuun Bayarsaikhan, Third Secretary for Education, Culture, Science, and Environmental Affairs at the Mongolian Embassy.