- Pritzker Fellows
- Former Fellows
- Eboo Patel
Eboo Patel
Founder & President of the Interfaith Youth Core
Biography
Eboo Patel is a leading voice in the movement for interfaith cooperation and the Founder and President of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a national nonprofit working to make interfaith cooperation a social norm. He is the author of Acts of Faith, Sacred Ground and Interfaith Leadership. Named by US News & World Report as one of America’s Best Leaders of 2009, Eboo served on President Obama’s Inaugural Faith Council. He is a regular contributor to the public conversation around religion in America and a frequent speaker on the topic of religious pluralism. He holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. For over fifteen years, Eboo has worked with governments, social sector organizations, and college and university campuses to help realize a future where religion is a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division.
Eboo lives in Chicago with his wife, Shehnaz, and two sons. When he’s not teaching his kids about interfaith cooperation, you’ll find him feeding his coffee addiction and rooting for Notre Dame.
Seminars
“Identity, Diversity & Democracy”
America prides itself on being a diverse democracy, but there have long been tensions and inequalities between identity communities. What kinds of identity discourse are required to build a more perfect union? What kinds are unhealthy or counterproductive? This seminar will consider a variety of approaches to identity politics.
The Civil Rights movement could easily be understood as an interfaith initiative. Since that era, the United States has only gotten more religiously diverse. What perils and possibilities does this religious diversity present for our politics and public life today?
The era of Islamophobia is causing interesting shifts within the Muslim community in the United States. Proudly non-practicing Muslims like Aziz Ansari are now popular defenders of the Muslim community in the public square. Immigrant Muslims and their descendants are adopting the narratives of African American Muslims, as if their ancestors came off slave ships themselves. What do these dynamics teach us about America, Islam and American Islam?