Welcome to

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

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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…)

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Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, Ph.D., Founding Director and Editor

Webpage at UMass Boston UMB Sociology Department UMass Boston Homepage

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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Home | Center | Journal | Teaching | Meetings | Publications | Press | Khayyam | Contact

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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
Volume VII, Issue 2 Spring 2009 Historicizing Anti-Semitism	Volume VII, Issue 3 Summer 2009 Sociological Re-Imaginations in & of Universities	Volume VII, Issue 4 Fall 2009 Migrating Identities and Perspectives: Latin America and the Caribbean in Local and Global Contexts
Volume VI, Issue 3 Summer 2008 Thich Nhat Hanh's Sociological Imagination: Essays and Commentaries on Engaged Buddhism	Volume VI, Issue 4 Fall 2008 Microcosms of Hope: Celebrating Student Scholars	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)

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

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)