While South and East Asia have long enjoyed a well-reputed presence in area studies scholarship in American universities, what do we know of North Asia, the vast area of northern Eurasia, stretching east of the Ural mountains to the Pacific coast? At first glance it would seem that the answer is not much, aside from exotic images of throat singing, shamans, Gulags, permafrost, and, most recently, tourist brochures promising "off-the-beaten-path" adventures. Yet North Asia, which for the purposes of this course will cover both Siberia and Mongolia, has long been regarded as a coherent world area in more limited scholarly circles, with sweeping imperial histories, unique indigenous ontologies, and increasing prominence in international affairs. This course starts off by looking at the emergence of area studies in the context of post-World War II military and geopolitical remappings whereby "Europe" came to mean Western Europe, Asia became "South" and "East" (and sometimes "Central"), Siberia was curiously appended to "Eastern" Europe, and Mongolia, viewed as nothing more than a Soviet satellite in Asia, became a blank spot on the map. We will challenge these categories by focusing on the interaction of culture, religion, and politics, which shaped this transnational region over the long twentieth century. The readings will combine anthropological and historical perspectives with special attention paid to the themes of nomadism, religion (Buddhism, shamanism, Christianity), revolutionary politics, and contemporary sociopolitical developments after the fall of socialism.