As Dean of the College of Arts at Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad, he had a library of 6,000 books.
For now, though, visiting professor Abdul Sattar Jawad makes do with some borrowed books from the library and a few purchases from the Gothic Bookshop.
After having his newspaper office bombed and enduring threats and intimidation at the university, Jawad left Iraq in June and accepted a fellowship offered by Duke this fall.
"The universities in Iraq are full of religious fanatics," Jawad said. He added that clerics at the university had cancelled some classes because of their subject matter and threatened him personally.
The professor, who has authored 14 books on literature and journalism and received his doctorate in London, has continued his research at the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies.
Jawad has been interviewed frequently by American media as an Iraqi scholar and citizen. He said that one of the biggest casualties of the war in Iraq has been the flight of the academia.
"The elite are leaving the country," Jawad said. "It's an urban jungle."
This is just one of the problems that Iraq faces at the moment, Jawad explained. The division of the country into sects and factions stands in the way of progress, he added.
"Saddam Hussein deserved kicking out," Jawad said, but he added that the officials in charge now are worse. "They are doing worse than Saddam Hussein because they are religious militia."
He believes that secular citizens, not clerics, are needed to put Iraq back together. The elections, he contended, only put religious militants in power.
"Democracy is a culture. It cannot be imposed or imported," Jawad explained.
Jawad himself became a target for religious militants as the editor for the Baghdad Mirror, a secular newspaper.
In mid-March, 10 minutes after leaving his office, he was told by reporters that his office had been bombed and was on fire. "Luckily no one was killed at that time," he said.
Combined with the threats received from clerics at his university, this incident prompted Jawad to resign his post as dean. He and his wife immigrated to Jordan where he was then offered a fellowship at Duke.
"Duke is fabulous-everybody here is helpful and understanding," Jawad said. "I am very happy to be here."
In the past, he translated T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" into Arabic. One of his current projects is translating Shakespeare's sonnets and analyzing them in a biographical context. "The Iraqi audience is quite familiar with the plays, but they are not so familiar with the sonnets," Jawad said.
Next semester he will teach Modern Arabic Literature and Culture in the Asian and African languages and literature department as well as a class in Arabic studies.
Jawad plans to stay at least until July and possibly next year if the situation in Iraq does not improve.
"We need now, I think, to hold a national convention to bring all the factions together," he said. "They need a supportive hand and advice."
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