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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 is Associate Professor of Sociology, teaching Social Theory at UMass Boston. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology (in conjunction with a graduate certificate in Middle Eastern studies) from SUNY-Binghamton and a B.A. in Architecture from U.C. Berkeley. His fields of theoretical specialization include Sociological Imaginations, Self and Society, World-Historical Sociology, Sociology of Knowledge, Social Movements, and Utopias. Tamdgidi's research and teaching are framed by an interest in understanding how personal self-knowledges and world-historical social structures constitute one another. His continuing research on liberating social theory in self and world-historical contexts is pursued via critical comparative/integrative explorations of utopian, mystical, and scientific discourses and practices. Tamdgidi is the founding editor of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, a publication of OKCIR: the Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics), which serves to frame his research and pedagogical initiatives.

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Previous Issues of
Human Architecture



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
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)

 


>> LATEST!

NEW!

Latest new Issues of
Human Architecture:
Journal of the Sociology of
Self-Knowledge


Volume IX, 2011, Issues 1-4
Volume X, 2012, Issue 1

Now Available in Print
and Freely Online




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 2012

Teaching Transformations 2011




Volume IX, Issue 2
Spring 2011

Learning Transormations:
Sociological Imaginationas from
First Year Seminars and Beyond




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


BOOKS



Gurdjieff and Hypnosis:
A Hermeneutic Study

(Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)


Advancing Utopistics:
The Three Component Parts
and Errors of Marxism
(Paradigm Publishers, 2007)
(New Paperback Edition, 2009)