HUMAN ARCHITECTURE:
Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge

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Editor: Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Massachusetts Boston

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Table of Contents of Previous Issues
Editorial Policy, Submissions, and General Information
Subscription and Order Form

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Editor's Perspective

Human architecture and the sociology of self-knowledge relate to one another as practice to research—as whole to part. Human architecture is about tearing down walls of human alienation, and building integrative human realities in favor of a just global society. The sociology of self-knowledge explores how everyday personal self-identities and world-historical social structures constitute one another. And the present journal seeks to chronicle the creatively evolving spiral of their dialectical journey toward untapped human potentialities.

Human Architecture maintains that all human failures at self and broader social change in favor of the good life are rooted in the problem of habituation, i.e., the human propensity to become subconsciously attached to sensations, ideas, feelings, things, relations, and processes. Decisive among these habituations are the dualisms of theory/practice, self/society, and matter/mind—by-products of dualistic oppositions of materialist and idealist world outlooks lasting for millennia. These dualisms are responsible for the world-historical fragmentation of the essentially creative human search for the good life into mutually alienated and thereby failing paradigms of philosophy, religion, and science—giving rise to equally fragmented and mutually alienated western utopian, eastern mystical, and global academic movements.

The splitting of the inherently artistic and creative human spirit into its ideological components more or less corresponds to the world-historical transitions of ancient civilizations to classical political, medieval cultural, and modern economic empires—for which the dialectics of nomadic vs. settled modes of life paved the way in the course of an increasingly synchronous global development. The postmodern condition today is the general crisis of all fragmented paradigmatic structures, modern and/or traditional. It follows, then, that the good life will not be the gift of a wise few, of supernatural forces beyond, or of an objectively preordained natural or historical progress. Human de-alienation can only be an artistic endeavor by each and all—only within a creative humanist framework can the habituated dualisms and fragmentations of philosophy, religion, and science be overcome while preserving their true meanings and contributions.

It will be demonstrated that all dualisms can be effectively transcended through their conscious and intentional re-articulation as diverse manifestations of part-whole dialectics. The habituated common sense definition of society as multiple ethno-national and civilizational systems of relations among “individuals”—based on ahistorical presumptions of human “individuality”—will be rejected in favor of its definition as a singular world-historical ensemble of intra-, inter-, and extrapersonal self relations. It will be argued that human life can be harmonious only when it is a world-system of self-determining individualities. Contributions of western utopianism, eastern mysticism, and Science to an otherwise singular movement in humanist utopystics will be critically explored within an integrative framework. Human architecture will be introduced as the spatiotemporal art of design and construction of part-whole dialecticities in everyday life—of building alternative world-historical realities in the midst of the personal here and now.

Human Architecture provides a forum for the exploration of personal self-knowledges within a re-imagined sociological framework. It seeks to creatively institutionalize new conceptual and curricular structures of knowledge whereby critical study of one’s selves within an increasingly world-historical framework is given educational and pedagogical legitimacy. The journal is a public forum for those who seek to radically understand and, if need be, change their world-historically constructed selves. It is a utopystic research and educational landscape for fostering de-alienated and self-determining human realities.

Human Architecture will transcend the habituated dualisms of young and old, undergraduate and graduate, student and teacher, in and outside classroom, on- and off-campus, academic and non-academic, knowledge and feeling, mind and body, private and public, society and nature, reality and imagination, and philosophy, religion, science, and the arts—east and west. It will disempower the social stratifications of class, status, and power arising from economy, culture, and politics in favor of recognizing the all-encompassing stretch of human alienation—fostering new sociological imaginations more conducive to a shared human liberation project.

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Editorial Adviseory Board

In Honor of Jesse Reichek (1916-2005) Professor of Architecture, U.C. Berkeley Ayan Ahmed B.A., Sociology, UMass Boston —————— David Baronov Assistant Professor of Sociology, St. John Fisher College —————— Anna Beckwith Adjunct Lecturer of Sociology, UMass Boston —————— Keilah Billings Undergraduate Student of Sociology, UMass Boston —————— Bart Bonikowski Doctoral Student of Sociology, Duke University —————— Milton Butts Jr. Assistant Professor of Sociology, UMass Boston —————— Jorge Capetillo-Ponce Assistant Professor of Sociology, UMass Boston —————— Arlene Dallalfar Professor of Sociology & Women’s Studies, Lesley College —————— Estelle Disch Professor of Sociology, UMass Boston —————— Alicia Dowd Assistant Professor of Higher Education Administration and Leadership Graduate College of Education, UMass Boston —————— Benjamin Frymer Assistant Professor of Sociology Hutchins School of Liberal Studies Sonoma State University —————— Bryan Gangemi Student/Activist, UMass Boston —————— Chris Gauthier Doctoral Student of Sociology, University of Michigan —————— Michal Ginach Psychoanalyst, The Institute for the Study of Violence Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis —————— Panayota Gounari Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics, UMass Boston —————— Jenna Howard Doctoral Student of Sociology, The State University of New Jersey at Rutgers —————— Tu Huynh Doctoral Student of Sociology, SUNY-Binghamton —————— Glenn Jacobs Associate Professor of Sociology, UMass Boston —————— Philip Kretsedemas Assistant Professor of Sociology, UMass Boston —————— Winston Langley Associate Provost for Academic Affairs, UMass Boston —————— Jennifer McFarlane-Harris Doctoral Candidate, English and Women's Studies University of Michigan, Ann Arbor —————— Neil G. McLaughlin Associate Professor of Sociology, McMaster University, Canada —————— Emily Margulies B.A., Sociology, SUNY-Oneonta —————— Jonathan Martin Assistant Professor of Sociology, Framingham State College

Bruce Mazlish Professor Emeritus of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology —————— Askold Melnyczuk Assistant Professor of English, Director of Creative Writing Center UMass Boston —————— Aundra Saa Meroe Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Urban and Minority Education Teachers College, Columbia University —————— Martha Montero-Sieburth Associate Professor of Higher Education Administration and Leadership Graduate College of Education UMass Boston —————— Anthony Nadler Assistant Coordinator Office of Service-Learning and Community Outreach, UMass Boston —————— Donna M. Rafferty Undergraduate Student of Sociology, UMass Boston —————— Dylan Rodriguez Assistant Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies U.C. Riverside —————— Annie Roper Undergraduate Student of Sociology, UMass Boston —————— Khaldoun Samman Assistant Professor of Sociology, Macalester College —————— Emmett Schaefer Adjunct Assistant Professor of Sociology, UMass Boston —————— Frank Scherer Doctoral Candidate, Social/Political Thought Program York University, Toronto, Canada —————— Ingrid Semaan Doctoral Candidate of Sociology, UMass Amherst —————— Tim Sieber Professor of Anthropology, UMass Boston —————— Rajini Srikanth Associate Professor of English, UMass Boston —————— Shirley Tang Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies and American Studies, UMass Boston —————— Peter Van Do M.A., American Studies, UMass-Boston —————— Aleksandra Wagner BA Program Core Faculty, Sociology, The New School —————— Rika Yonemura Doctoral Student of Sociology, U.C. San Diego —————— Reef Youngreen Assistant Professor of Sociology, UMass Boston —————— Samuel Zalanga Assistant Professor of Sociology, Bethel College ——————