Spotlight on Gaza Rising
This 2009 (VII) special issue of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge entitled ‘If I touch the depths 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. 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.
Read MoreWelcome to Okcir
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.
OKCIR promotes creative exercises in liberating sociology and alternative pluriversities of knowledge production and publication in the global cyberspace. As a virtual research center, its publications are available online in its digital library via membership or subscription to its own or other academic database member-stacks, and for purchase online via the Okcir Store and other online distributors. Selected publications are also available in print for online purchase by libraries, institutions, and interested print readers.
Read MoreMahmoud Darwish, “I Long for My Mother’s Bread” (Sung by Marcel Khalife)
Other Book and Monograph Series in Human Architecture and More
Edited Collection Series: Issues of Human Architecture and More
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Rod Bush: Lessons from a Radical Black Scholar on Liberation, Love, and Justice

Conversations with Enrique Dussel on Anti-Cartesian Decoloniality & Pluriversal Transmodernity

Decolonizing the University: Practicing Pluriversity
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Contesting Memory: Museumizations of Migration in Comparative Global Context
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Teaching Transformations 2011
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Learning Transformations: Applied Sociological Imaginations from First Year Seminars and Beyond
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Graduate Theorizations: Imaginative Applied Sociologies—Manifest and Latent
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Islam: From Phobia to Understanding
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Teaching Transformations 2010
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“If I touch the Depth of Your Heart … ” : The Human Promise of Poetry in Memories of Mahmoud Darwish
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Migrating Identities and Perspectives: Latin America and the Caribbean in Local and Global Contexts
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Sociological Re-Imaginations in & of Universities
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Historicizing Anti-Semitism
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Teaching Transformations 2009

Microcosms of Hope: Celebrating Student Scholars
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Thich Nhat Hanh’s Sociological Imagination: Essays and Commentaries on Engaged Buddhism
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Sociological Imaginations from the Classroom Plus A Symposium on the Sociology of Science Perspectives on the Malfunctions of Science and Peer Reviewing
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Teaching Transformations
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Reflections on Fanon: Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Social Theory Forum March 27-28, 2007, UMass Boston
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Insiders/Outsiders: Voices from the Classroom
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Othering Islam
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Re-Membering Anzaldúa: Proceedings of the Third Annual Social Theory Forum April 5-6, 2006, UMass Boston
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Student Scholarships of Learning
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Sociology of Self-Knowledge: Course Topic as well as Pedagogical Strategy
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Students’ Critical Theories in Applied Settings
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Social Theories, Student Realities
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Student Spiritual Renaissances & Social Reconstructions
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