Auftakt 26 / 27
for university staff, UGO members and invited guests from the worlds of politics, academia, business and culture
Thursday, 29 October 2026
Lecture centre A14, Audimax
To mark the official opening of the 2026/27 academic year, the University of Oldenburg and the Universitätsgesellschaft Oldenburg (UGO) are jointly hosting a special event. The keynote address will be delivered by the journalist and author Hasnain Kazim.
Programme
From 5.30 pm: Admission to the Lecture centre
6.00 pm Champagne reception
6.45 pm Ceremony in the Audimax, including
Adress by the Minister or Science and Culture of Lower Saxony
Falko Mohrs
Address by the Mayor
Christine Wolff
Speech by the President
Prof. Dr Ralph Bruder
Keynote lecture by
Hasnain Kazim
“Sagen, was ist? Forschen, was ist? Eine Gesellschaftskritik”
Award ceremony by UGO Chair
Dr Stefanie Abke
Reception in the foyer
light refreshments and drinks
(alcoholic drinks at your own expense)
Host: Nils Prior
Musical entertainment for the evening: Institute of Music
Please note that photographs and video footage will be taken during the event. The material will be used for the university’s public relations work (press releases, the university newspaper UNI-INFO, the university website and social media channels).
Hasnain Kazim
Hasnain Kazim was born in Oldenburg in 1974 and is the son of Indian-Pakistani immigrants. He grew up in Hollern-Twielenfleth in the Altes Land, just outside Hamburg, and in Karachi in Pakistan; he studied political science and embarked on a career as a naval officer.
He learnt the craft of journalism in Swabia, at the ‘Heilbronner Stimme‘, wrote for, amongst others, the dpa South Asia bureau in Delhi and, from 2004 to 2019, for SPIEGEL and SPIEGEL ONLINE, spending most of that time as a foreign correspondent in Islamabad, Istanbul and Vienna.
He has received various awards for his work, including the ‘CNN Journalist Award’. He continues to live in Vienna as a freelance writer and contributes to publications including ZEIT ONLINE, DIE ZEIT, taz, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Deutschlandfunk, as well as writing a weekly column for SPIEGEL.
Kazim has published several books, including ‘Grünkohl und Curry‘, ‘Plötzlich Pakistan‘ and ‘Krisenstaat Türkei‘. The book ‘Post von Karlheinz‘, which compiles his exchanges with angry readers, spent many weeks on the bestseller list. ‘Auf sie mit Gebrüll!‘, a guide to arguing properly, also became a bestseller. In 2021, his first work of fiction, the political satire ‘Mein Kalifat‘, was published, followed in 2022 by ‘Mein Kalifats-Kochbuch‘. In 2023, together with the illustrator Lena Hesse, he published his first children’s book: ‘Zoff! Bumm! Bämm!‘, a book about arguing. In 2024, ‘Deutschlandtour. Auf der Suche nach dem, was unser Land zusammenhält - Ein politischer Reisebericht’ was published, followed in March 2026 by ‘Der Islam und ich. Was mich meine Familie, meine norddeutsche Heimat und mein Leben in muslimischen Ländern über den Islam gelehrt haben’.
