Former Summer Fellow Abaas Yunas Wins Eilts Award for Best Pardee School Graduate Thesis

Abaas Yunas, a 2018 Pardee Center Graduate Summer Fellow, was awarded the 2019 Eilts Award for best graduate thesis at the Pardee School of Global Studies convocation ceremony on Saturday, May 18.

The Amb. Hermann Frederick Eilts Thesis Awards are given annually to the best undergraduate and graduate theses written by Pardee School students. The award “recognizes the value of good research and policy analysis at the Pardee School and celebrates the contribution of Ambassador Hermann Frederick Eilts, the founder of the International Relations programs at Boston University.”

Yunas, who earned a Master of Arts in International Affairs, won the award for his thesis titled Stable Difference: Conceptions of Inclusive Citizenship and Civic Coexistence for Religiously Pluralistic Societies in the Works of Contemporary Traditional Muslim Scholars. In the thesis, he raises concerns about how the spread of terrorism in the Middle East has adversely affected religious minorities, and about whether local religious leaders can formulate conceptions of citizenship and civic coexistence that extend equal rights and recognition to all citizens. He focuses on the works of two leading scholars in particular and analyzes their arguments for an inclusive society, finding that their contributions are not just instructive for the Middle East but insightful for many regions across the world where identity conflicts, populism, and ‘othering’ are increasingly salient.

As a 2018 Graduate Summer Fellow, Yunas studied the projected demographic shift of religious affiliation to the global south, and the potential long-term implications these changes will have on development, international affairs, and diplomacy.

Learn more about the Pardee Center Graduate Summer Fellows program.