OKCIR: Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research

OKCIR: Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics) (est. 2002) is an independent research and publishing 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 shortcomings 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, pedagogical, inspirational and disseminative structures of knowledge whereby the individual can radically understand and determine how world-history and her/his selves constitute one another.

This 2009 (VII) special issue of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge entitled “If I touch the Depth of Your Heart … ” : The Human Promise of Poetry in Memories of Mahmoud Darwish is a commemorative issue on the life and poetry of the late Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, co-edited by a group of UMass Boston faculty and alumni.

Mahmoud Darwish was and is regarded as Palestine's national poet. He wrote the Palestinian Declaration of Palestine used for the formal establishment of the state of Palestine as declared on November 15, 1988, in Algiers, Algeria.

Other than keynote opening statements, the special issue is comprised of a selected series of longer and shorter poems by Mahmoud Darwish, followed by commemorative poetry and essays/articles that directly or indirectly engage with Mahmoud Darwish’s work and/or the subject matter of his passion and love, Palestine and human rights and dignity.

All section pdfs are freely accessible for reading online by clicking on the section title listed in the table of contents and then again on the large pdf image on the bottom of their respective pages.