Welcome to

OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)


The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics) is an independent research and pedagogical initiative dedicated to exploring, in a simultaneously world-historical and self-reflective framework, the human search for a just global society. Since the world's utopian, mystical, and scientific movements have been the primary sources of inspiration, knowledge, and/or practice in this field, OKCIR aims to critically reexamine the limits and contributions of these world-historical traditions—seeking to clearly understand why they have failed to bring about the good society, and what each can integratively contribute toward realizing that end. The center aims to develop new conceptual (methodological, theoretical, historical), practical, curricular, and inspirational structures of knowledge whereby the individual can radically understand and determine how world-history and her/his selves constitute one another. OKCIR publishes Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, which explores issues pertaining to the center's interests, and pursues innovative editorial, virtual, and print publishing practices reflecting its substantive goals. (Read more…)


Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, Ph.D.
, Founding Director and Editor
Mohammad H. (Behrooz) Tamdgidi holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology in conjunction with a graduate certificate in Middle Eastern studies from SUNY-Binghamton. He received his B.A. in Architecture from U.C. Berkeley, following enrollment as an undergraduate student of Civil Engineering at the University of Tehran. Tamdgidi’s research and teaching have been framed by an interest in understanding how personal self-knowledges of multiple selves and singular world-historical social structures constitute one another. He has previously authored Gurdjieff and Hypnosis: A Hermeneutic Study (Palgrave/Macmillan 2009/12) and Advancing Utopistics: The Three Component Parts and Errors of Marxism (Paradigm Publishers 2007/09). Tamdgidi is the founding editor of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge (ISSN: 1540-5699, 2002–), a publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics) which has served since 2002 to frame his independent research, pedagogical, and professional initiatives. Tamdgidi is presently an associate professor of sociology teaching social theory at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Home | Center | Journal | Press | Khayyam | Contact



Previous Issues of
Human Architecture

 




Volume X, Issue 1
Winter 2012
Decolonizing the University:
Practicing Pluriversity




Volume IX, Issue 4
Fall 2011
Contesting Memory:
Museumizations of Migration in
Comparative Global Context




Volume IX, Issue 3
Summer 2011

Teaching Transformations 2011




Volume IX, Issue 2
Spring 2011
Learning Transormations:
Sociological Imaginationas from
First Year Seminars and Beyond




Volume IX, Issue 1
Winter 2011
Graduate Theorizations:
Imaginative Applied Sociologies
—Manifest and Latent



Volume VII
Special Issue 2009
The Human Promise of Poetry in Memories of Mahmoud Darwish



Volume VIII
Issue 1, Spring 2010
Teaching Transformations 2010



Volume VIII
Issue 2, Fall 2010

Islam: From Phobia to Understanding

Anti-Semitism

Volume VII, Issue 2
Spring 2009
Historicizing Anti-Semitism



Volume VII, Issue 3
Summer 2009
Sociological
Re-Imaginations
in & of Universities

Anzalduasm

Volume VII, Issue 4
Fall 2009
Migrating Identities and Perspectives:
Latin America and the Caribbean in Local and Global Contexts

Fanon

Volume VI, Issue 3
Summer 2008
Thich Nhat Hanh's
Sociological Imagination:
Essays and Commentaries on Engaged Buddhism

AdvancingUtopistics

Volume VI, Issue 4
Fall 2008
Microcosms of Hope:
Celebrating Student Scholars

 

TeachingTransformation2009

Volume VII, Issue 1
Winter 2009
Teaching Transformations 2009


Volume V, Special Issue
Summer 2007
Reflections on Fanon


Volume VI, Issue 1
Winter 2008
Teaching Transformation


Volume VI, Issue 2
Spring 2008
Sociological Imaginations
From the Classroom


Volume IV, Special Issue
Summer 2006
Re-Membering Anzaldúa



Volume V, Issue 1
Fall 2006
Othering Islam



Volume V, Issue 2
Spring 2007
Insiders/Outsiders:
Voices from the
Classroom


Volume II, Issue 2
Fall 2003/Spring 2004
Critical Theories in
Applied Settings


Volume III, Issues 1&2
Fall 2004/Spring 2005
Sociology of Self-Knowledge:
Course Topic as well as
Pedagogical Strategy


Volume IV, Issues 1&2
Fall 2005/Spring 2006
Scholarships of Learning


Volume I, Issue 1
Spring 2002
Life Courses &
Social Policies


Volume I, Issue 2
Fall 2002
Spiritual Renaissances
and Social
Reconstructions


Volume II, Issue 1
Spring 2003
Social Theories,
Student Realities


>> LATEST!

NEW!

All Issues of
Human Architecture:
Journal of the Sociology of
Self-Knowledge

Individual articles Freely Online!

Whole issues available per order
in print and ebook (pdf) formats.


Books



Gurdjieff and Hypnosis:
A Hermeneutic Study

(Palgrave Macmillan,
Hardcover ed. 2009,

Paperback ed., Oct. 2012)


Advancing Utopistics:
The Three Component Parts
and Errors of Marxism
(Paradigm Publishers,
Hardcover ed. 2007,
Paperback ed., 2009)


Chapters



Chapter: "Decolonizing Selves: The Subtler Violences of Colonialism and Racism in Fanon, Said, and Anzaldua" (pp:117-148) in

Fanon and the Decolonization of Philosophy
Edited by Elizabeth A. Hoppe and Tracey Nichols, with a foreword by
Mireille Fanon-Mendes France
(Lexington Books, A Division of Roman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2009)

 



Chapter: "The Simultaneity of Self- and Global Transformations: Bridging with Anzaldua's Liberating Vision" in

Bridging: How Gloria Anzaldua's Life and Work Transformed Our Own
Edited by AnaLouise Keating and Gloria Gonzalez-Lopez
(University of Texas Press, April 2011)




Chapter: "Rethinking Diversity Amid Pedagogical Flexibility: Fostering the Scholarships of Learning and Teaching of the Sociological Imagination" (pp:187-206) in

Making Connections:
Self-Study & Social Action

Edited by Kathleen Pithouse, Claudia Mitchell, and Relebohile Molestsane
(Peter Lang, 2009)




Chapter: "Utopystics and the Asiatic Modes of Liberation: Gurdjieffian Contributions to the Sociological Imaginations of Inner and Global World-Systems" (pp:139-155) in

The Rise of Asia and the Transformation of the World-System
Edited by Ganesh K. Trichur
(Paradigm Publishers, 2009/2010)




Chapter: "From Utopistics to Utopystics: Integrative Reflections on Potential Contributions of Mysticism to World-Systems Analyses and Praxes of Historical Alternatives" (pp:220-232) in

Islam and the Orientalist World-System
Edited by Khaldoun Samman and Mazhar Al-Zo'by
(Paradigm Publishers, 2008)


Class-Book




"I" in the World-System
Stories from an Odd Sociology Class
Selected Student Writings:
Soc 280Z-Sociology of Knowledge: Mysticism, Science, and Utopia, Binghamton University, Spring 1997
Edited by M. H. Tamdgidi

(Okcir Press, 2005)t