The Paderborn Faculty of Theology is the oldest university in Westphalia. It was founded on 10 September 1614 by the Prince-Bishop of Paderborn, Dietrich IV von Fürstenberg, as a Jesuit university. It was confirmed by Pope Paul V on 2 April 1615 and by Emperor Matthias in a diploma dated 14 December 1615. The first generation of professors included Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld, the important Baroque poet and campaigner against the witch craze; he was a professor of philosophy here from 1623 to 1626 and taught moral theology from 1629 to 1631.

Even after the dissolution of the Jesuit order in 1773 and the end of the prince-bishopric of Paderborn in 1803, the university continued to exist. Although King Frederick William III of Prussia ordered its dissolution in 1818, this was not implemented and was expressly revoked in 1836 by Supreme Decree. This allowed the university to experience a new heyday after the Kulturkampf (1871-1878). From 16 March 1917, it bore the name 'Philosophical-Theological Academy'.

By decree of 11 June 1966, Pope Paul VI granted the university the legal status of a Faculty of Theology. This legal status still exists today. According to § 74 para. 1 of the Higher Education Act of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia of 31.10.2006, "the Paderborn Faculty of Theology is a state-recognised university within the meaning of this law". It therefore has the same status as the corresponding faculties or departments of the state universities of the Federal Republic of Germany.

On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the Faculty of Theology, a documentation was created that provides an overview of the buildings and their equipment, the professors and students as well as the organisation of the university. The exhibition presents documents, manuscripts and other original artefacts from four centuries. Information boards show visitors different aspects of the faculty's exciting history.

The exhibition will open on 6 October 2015 at 17:00 in the foyer of Paderborn University Library. It can then be visited until 3 November 2015 during the opening hours of the University Library: Monday to Friday: 7:30 - 24:00, Saturday to Sunday: 9:00 - 21:00 (closed on public holidays).

Contact exhibition:
Prof. Dr. Hermann-Josef Schmalor, Archbishop's Academic Library Paderborn
E-mail: Hermann-Josef.Schmalor@eab-paderborn.de

> Exhibition poster

From 9 June to 3 July 2015, Paderborn University Library is presenting an unusual dialogue between texts by Prof. Dr. Marcel Robischon - Chair of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences at the Albrecht Daniel Thaer Institute at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - and collages, drawings and sketches by artist, doctoral student and lecturer Chris Tomaszewski. The exhibition was initiated and curated by Prof. Dr. Jutta Ströter-Bender, subject area Art at Paderborn University.

In his books, individual passages of which are presented in this exhibition, Prof. Dr. Marcel Robischon describes the historical eradication of biodiversity by humans in an extraordinary and at the same time dense way; he speaks of the cultural impoverishment that goes hand in hand with this, of the loss of an intellectual repertoire from which human culture has always drawn. Diversity becomes simplicity. What consequences does this have for people as cultural beings? What does it mean for our lives when fewer and fewer animals and plants enrich nature?

Chris Tomaszewski also addresses these questions with drawings and collages. In dialogue with Marcel Robischon's texts, he created his works on the disappearing birds, the largely endangered fireflies and other insects that can be seen in the exhibition.

The exhibition will open on 9 June at 17:00 in the foyer of Paderborn University Library. It can be visited during the opening hours of the University Library:

Monday to Friday: 7:30 - 24:00,
Saturday to Sunday: 9:00 - 21:00.

Contact exhibition:
Prof. Dr Jutta Ströter-Bender, Institute of Art, Music and Textiles
E-mail: stroeter@zitmail.uni-paderborn.de

> Exhibition poster

African art will be exhibited in the University Library from 11 to 13 May: Works by Soba do Cristo Toko, an artist from Angola who has been living in Germany for 15 years, will be on display. He studied traditional African painting and reinterprets African elements in his pictures.

The exhibition is part of the "Afrikanischen Woche", which is being organised for the first time by the "Afrikanischen Studierenden Gemeinschaft" (ASG). African students at the university, who are proud of their homeland, are presenting their continent. The exhibition and other events are intended to help raise awareness of African culture within the university and the city of Paderborn University and the surrounding area.

The exhibition can be visited from 11 to 13 May during the opening hours of the University Library: Monday to Wednesday: 7:30 to 24:00.

> Exhibition poster

70 years ago, the pastor, resistance fighter and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was murdered in the Flossenbürg concentration camp in the Upper Palatinate. He belonged to the generation of theologians who sought a new beginning in the church after the First World War. As early as 1933, he very clearly expressed his rejection of National Socialism and was involved in the Confessing Church, which fought against the appropriation of the church by the inhuman regime. He himself came to the conclusion that active resistance was the task of the hour. In 1943, he was arrested by the Nazis and taken to Tegel prison in Berlin. His notes, which were published after the war under the title "Resistance and Surrender", made him known to a broad public. In 1945 he was taken to Flossenbürg concentration camp and executed on 9 April.

The Institute of Protestant Theology at Paderborn University offered events on Bonhoeffer's life and work in the 2014/15 winter semester. One result was the reading in the Paul Schneider House in Wewelsburg on 27 January 2015, the day the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated. On the anniversary of Bonhoeffer's death, 9 April 2015, the exhibition "Gute Mächte und böser Tage schwere Last" will open at Paderborn University Library at 16:00. Works by students dealing with Bonhoeffer as well as documents from the time of the church struggle will be on display. Afterwards, the Bonhoeffer reading performance will be repeated. It will begin at 16:45 on the forecourt of the main university entrance and end in the Lukas Community Centre. Very different texts by Bonhoeffer will be heard.

The exhibition can be visited from 9 April to 3 May 2015 during the opening hours of the University Library:
Monday to Friday: 7:30 to 24:00,
Saturday to Sunday: 9:00 to 21:00 (closed on public holidays).

Guided tours can be arranged with Dr Janus if you are interested.

Contact exhibition:
Richard Janus, M.A., Institute of Protestant Theology, Paderborn University, e-mail: rjanus@mail.upb.de

> Exhibition poster

Born on 24 April 1954, Mumia Abu-Jamal grew up in a poor neighbourhood in Philadelphia in the US state of Pennsylvania. At the age of 14, he became a member of the black civil rights movement "Black Panther Party" and has been under surveillance by the FBI ever since. Sentenced to death, he has been in prison since 1982; he was finally denied the chance of an appeal in 2011. Even after leaving prison, Abu-Jamal continued to work as a journalist and reported on structural racism, official corruption and systematic police violence.

The One World project area is showing an exhibition at Paderborn University Library that deals with the various aspects of the Mumia Abu-Jamal case and the social consequences of colonialism and slavery in the USA. Important topics are the still practised death penalty and the prison industrial complex, which ensures that more and more (poor) people are imprisoned for predominantly racist reasons and forced to work for starvation wages.

The exhibition can be visited from 5 to 23 January 2015 during the opening hours of the University Library:
Monday to Friday 7:30 am to midnight,
Saturday and Sunday 9:00 am to 9:00 pm.

Contact exhibition:
project area One World, e-mail: vorstand@einewelt.uni-paderborn.de, website: einewelt.uni-paderborn.de

> Exhibition poster