Franz Fischer is associate professor for Medieval and Humanist Latin Literature (L-FIL-LET/08) and director of the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities (VeDPH) at the Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici (DSU), Ca' Foscari University of Venice. Before coming to Venice in 2019, he has been working as a coordinator at the Cologne Center for eHumanities (CCeH) of the University of Cologne. During this time he has been coordinating several Digital Humanities research projects, among others the EU funded Marie Curie Network on Digital Scholarly Editions DiXiT.

He studied History, Latin and Italian in Cologne and Rome and has been awarded a doctoral degree in Medieval Latin for the digital edition of a treatise on liturgy by the Parisian Master William of Auxerre (c. 1150-1231). After employments as research associate and as a school teacher he took up the position of a postdoctoral researcher at the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) in Dublin, where he created a digital edition of the Confession of Ireland’s Patron Saint Patrick from the 5th century.

A founding member of the Institute for Documentology and Scholarly Editing (IDE), he is teaching at IDE summer schools, publishing a series on digital editions, palaeography & codicology (SIDE) and a review journal on digital editions and resources (RIDE). He is editor-in-chief of magazén – International Journal for Digital and Public Humanities and of Digital Medievalist, a peer reviewed open access journal of the Digital Medievalist Community, where he has been serving on the Executive Board from 2014 to 2020.

This is an overview of his academic life in brief facts:

Employments

• since 2019: Associate Professor for Medieval and Humanist Latin Literature, and Director of the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities (VeDPH), Department for the Humanities (DSU), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
• 2011-2019: Coordinator and Researcher (TV-L 14) at Cologne Center for eHumanities (CCeH), University of Cologne
• 2008-2011: Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), Dublin
• 2007-2008: Secondary school teacher for Classical Latin, Nicolaus-Cusanus-Gymnasium and Gymnasium Deutz, Cologne
• 2004-2008: Research associate at the Thomas Institute, University of Cologne

Education

• 2007: Ph.D. in Medieval Latin, University of Cologne (grade: 0.3 = magna cum laude), Guillelmi Autissiodorensis Summa de officiis ecclesiasticis
• 2001-2004: Scholarship at Graduate School 'Vormoderne Konzepte von Zeit und Vergangenheit' (Premodern concepts of time and past), University of Cologne
• 1999-2000: Student Teacher (Referendar) for Classical Latin and History, Montessori-Gymnasium, Cologne
• 1999: 3rd level degree (Staatsexamen) in Classical Latin, History and Education Science. Thesis: Edition of the Latin Papebroch diary (see Publications)
• 1995-1996: Diplôme Européen d'Études Médiévales (Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études  Médiévales), Vatican Library, Rome
• 1992-1999: Studies in Classical and Medieval Latin, History, Italian, Philosophy and Education Science, University of Cologne
• 1992: Final exams for university entrance (Abitur), Theodor-Heuss-Gymnasium in Dinslaken, Germany

Teaching record

• 2019-2020: Master Classes in Digital Humanities and Digital Manuscript Studies. Master in Digital Humanities, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
• 2018: MA class: Letters from World War II – Citizen Science, Public History and Social Editing. Institute for Digital Humanities, University of Cologne (awarded student’s poster at DH Oxford Summer School)
• Feb 2018: Graduate seminar: The Digital Schoolbook – Encoding Disticha Catonis. Classics Department / Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame (with Martin Bloomer)
• 2015-2018: 3 MA classes: Introduction to the Text Encoding Initiative. Institute for Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
• 2015-2019: 5 Colloquia: Current trends in Digital Humanities. Institute for Digital Humanities, University of Cologne (students’ accompanying blog)
• 2014-2015: Tutorial class: Scholarly Editing – Traditional methods and digital technology. Classics Department, University of Cologne (with Peter Orth)
• 2008-2017: 8 Summer school classes on Digital Scholarly Editions. Institute for Documentology and Scholarly Editing (IDE) & Digital Scholarly Editions Initial Training Network (DiXiT)
• 2012-2014: 3 Master classes: Text and Textuality. Digital Humanities, National University of Ireland Maynooth
• 2007-2008: Reading course: Medieval Latin Sources. Department of Medieval History, Ruhr-University Bochum
• 2007-2008: Secondary school classes for Classical Latin. Nicolaus-Cusanus-Gymnasium and Gymnasium Deutz, Cologne
• 2006-2007: Tutorial class: Scholarly Editing. Department of Humanities Computing, University of Cologne
• 2000-2001: Secondary school classes for Classical Latin and History, Montessori-Gymnasium, Cologne

Current professional services

• Editor-in-Chief:
  • magazén – International Journal for Digital and Public Humanities
  • Digital Medievalist Journal (peer-reviewed open-access online journal of the Digital Medievalist Community)
• Editor: RIDE – Review journal for digital editions and resources (peer-reviewed open-access online journal published by the Institute for Documentology and Scholarly Editing)
• Editorial board member:
  • Edizioni Ca’ Foscari (ECF)
  • SIDE – Schriften des Instituts für Dokumentologie und Editorik (publication series of the Institute for Documentology and Scholarly Editing)
• Executive board member: Digital Medievalist
• Evaluator/Panel Expert: European Commission (ERC), Arts and Humanities Research Council of the UK (AHRC), Irish Research Council (IRC), Agence nationale de la recherché (ANR), Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
• Reviewer for conferences: Digital Humanities (ADHO); Digital Humanities im deutschsprachigen Raum (DHd); TEI conference; Associazione per l’Informatica Umanistica e le Culture Digitali (AIUCD)
• Peer-reviewer: Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (LLC/DSH); Journal of the TEI (TEI-J); Scholarly Editing: The Annual of the Association for Documentary Editing; Variants
• Founding member of Institute for Documentology and Scholarly Editing (IDE)
• Member of the European Association for Digital Humanities (EADH)
• Member of Doctorate Commissions (Ca’ Foscari): Italianistica (36° ciclo, 2020/2021), Scienze dell’Antichità (36° ciclo, 2020/2021)

Civil services

• 2015-2019: Lay judge at District Court Cologne/ Hilfsschöffe am Amtsgericht Köln

Selected projects

2018: Annual conference of the association for Digital Humanities in German speaking countries, University of Cologne, Feb-March 2018. Funded by DFG (International Scientific Event), DHd, DARIAH-DE/CLARIN-DE.

• http://dhd2018.uni-koeln.de
• Field: Digital Humanities
• Role: Proposal writing (lead), organisation committee member

2016-2019: Magica Levantina – Digital Documentation Environment and Edition of ancient Greek magical texts. Funded by DFG.

• http://papyri.uni-koeln.de/magica-levantina/index.html
• Field: Papyrology, Epigraphy, Digital Humanities
• Role: Proposal writing, data modelling, project development, management

2015-2019: co:op – Community as Opportunity. The creative archives’ and users’ network. Funded by the EU, Creative Europe Programme.

• http://coop-project.eu, http://monasterium.net
• Field: Library and Archival Studies, Diplomatics, Digital Humanities
• Role: Proposal writing, work package lead, coordination of technical implementation

2015-2022: Itinera Nova. Digitisation and Transcription of Acts and Registers from 1362-1795. In collaboration with 35 volunteers and the City Archive Leuven. Funded by the Flemish government and the City of Leuven.

• http://www.itineranova.be
• Field: Middle Dutch, Digital Archive, Public History,
• Role: Data modelling, project development, refactoring

2015-2021: Disticha Catonis – The Digital Schoolbook. Collaboration with University of Notre Dame. Funded by the Notre Dame Office of Research

• Field: Classics, Medieval Studies, Digital Philology
• Role: Project development, data modelling, data transformation, training of staff members

2015-2021: BIFLOW – Bilingualism in Florentine and Tuscan Works (c. 1260-1416). Collaboration with the University of Venice and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. Funded by European Research Council.

• https://biflow.hypotheses.org
• Field: Medieval Studies, Digital Philology
• Role: Data modelling (incl. IIIF), digital edition of Francesco da Barberino’s ‘Documenti’

2015-2020: Realenzyklopädie für Antike und Christentum (RAC) – Digital edition and indexing. Collaboration with University of Bonn. Funded by the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts.

• Field: Cultural History and Transformation, Theology
• Role: Data modelling, project development

2014-2018: Edição Digital de Fernando Pessoa – Projetos e Publicações. Collaboration with Instituto de Estudos de Literatura e Tradição (IELT), Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

• http://www.pessoadigital.pt 
• Field: Portuguese literature, genetic criticism
• Role: Data modelling, project development

2013-2018: DiXiT – Digital Scholarly Editions Initial Training Network. Funded under Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions within the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme.

• http://www.dixit.uni-koeln.de
• Field: Digital Humanities, afterlife
• Role: Proposal writing (lead), coordination

2013-2029: Capitularia – Edition der fränkischen Herrschererlasse (Edition of the Frankish Capitularies). Funded by the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts (in connection with Monumenta Germaniae Historica).

• http://capitularia.uni-koeln.de
• Field: Medieval History, Digital Humanities
• Role: Proposal writing, project development, transcription guidelines.

2013-2019: Oral Tales of Mongol Bards – Digital audio archive (The Walther Heissig Collection). In collaboration with University of Bonn. Funded by the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts.

• https://mongoltales.awk.nrw.de/
• Field: East Asian studies, Digital Humanities
• Role: Proposal writing, data modelling, project development, management

2013-2018: Lokalbericht – Textgenetische editio princeps von Hermann Burgers erstem Roman. In collaboration with the Swiss Literary Archives (SLA). Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF).

• http://www.lokalbericht.ch
• Field: Germanic studies, genetic criticism
• Role: Data modelling, project development

2013-2014: LAZARUS – Langfristige Aufbereitung, Zugänglichkeit und Archivierung universitärer Sammlungen. Funded by North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research.

• http://www.cceh.uni-koeln.de/lazarus
• Field: Digital Humanities, Preservation and Sustainability
• Role: Proposal writing, project development, coordination

2012-2026: Kleine und Fragmentarische Historiker der Spätantike (Minor and Fragmentary Historians of Late Antiquity). In collaboration with the University of Düsseldorf. Funded by North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts.

• Field: Late Antiquity, Digital Philology
• Role: Project development, data modelling, data transformation

2008-2011: The Saint Patrick’s Confessio Hypertext Stack Project. Funded by EU and Higher Education Authority (HEA) of Ireland.

• http://confessio.ie
• Field: Celtic Studies, Digital Philology
• Role: Principal researcher, afterlife

2008-2011: The Schedula diversarum artium – A digital critical edition. Funded by Fritz Thyssen Foundation.

• http://schedula.uni-koeln.de
• Field: History of Arts, Digital Philology
• Role: Proposal writing (lead), project consultancy

Invited talks (since 2015)

• 28 Feb 2023: Manuscripts and Digital Textual Scholarship, Villa Vigoni (“Religious Studies in the Digital Age: Aligning Research Methodologies and National Strategies”)
• 10 Oct 2022: Master's degree in Digital and Public Humanities, University of Verona (Maratona DH)

• 5 Apr 2022: Critical Representations of Complex Manuscript Traditions, Scuola Vaticana di Biblioteconomia (Lectio magistralis)

• 23 May 2022: From Markup to Machine Learning - Digital Scholarly Editions of Ancient Texts, University of Parma (ENCODE Conference „Digital Critical Editions and Greek Literary Manuscripts“)

• 24 Mar 2022: Was vom Texte übrig bleibt. Präsentatiponsformen kritischer Edition, Bergische Universität Wuppertal (Summer School "Digitale Editionen – Interface-Design")

• 22 Feb 2022: The Venetian Way – Digital Humanities and the Public Affair, Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH), University of Luxembourg

• 28 Oct 2021: Editing complex manuscript traditions: multi-witnessed, multi-layered, multi-dimensional. The case Peter of Poitiers' Compendium in genealogia Christi, Radboud University, Nijmegen (International Workshop "On the Way to the Future of Digital Manuscript Studies")

• 11 Jun 2021: Digital Philology. Features, Faults and Flavours, University of Oxford (Lady Margaret Hall Textual Criticism Lectures)

• 8 Jun 2021: Making Sense of Textual Traditions: Digital Philology in Theory and Practice, University of Catania (Ciclo di seminari “TEMOIN” – Testo, Metodi, Interpretazioni nel Mondo Digitale)

• 22 Mar 2021: Digital Strategies for the Decanonistation of Textual Heritage, Ca' Foscari University of Venice (Symposium "Textual Heritage for the 21st Century")

• 5 Feb 2021: Back to the Future. Is digital textual criticism trapped in the past and why should we care?, University of Verona (Convegno “Le DH e gli studi filologico-letterari”)

• 27 Aug 2020: Digital Representations of Textual Heritage, or What is Text anyway?, University College London (ACHS 2020 FUTURES – Association of Critical Heritage Studies 5th Biennial Conference)

• 1 Jun 2020: Modelling Complex Manuscript Traditions: Multi-witnessed, Multi-layered, Multi-dimensional, University of Bologna (WHOmanities Workshop)

• 28 Jan 2020: Textual Authority and a Role Model for Corpora in the Digital Scholarly Ecosystem, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (ALIM & beyond – ALIM oltre ALIM)

• 28 Nov 2019: Wozu brauchen Philosophen digital Editionen?, University and City Library of Cologne (FID Philosophie, DigiPhiD Workshop)

• 20 Sept 2019:Graph as Text: Towards a Digital Edition of Peter of Poitiers’ Compendium historiae (with Roman Bleier), Unversity of Graz (19th annual Conference and Members’ Meeting of the Text Encoding Initiative Consortium)

• 2 May 2019: Initiativen, Infrastrukturen, Interfaces – Subjektiver Rundumschlag eines digitalen Editors, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt / Musil Musil-Institut für Literaturforschung (Keynote, KONDE Annual Meeting and Conference)

• 11 April 2019: Behold! See! Me? – Imaging Technologies and the Manuscript, Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice (ERC StG Project BIFLOW)

• 28 Sept 2018: Tous les cas sont spéciaux. Erschliessungspraktiken für digitales Kulturgut (with Peter Dängeli), Universität Zürich & Königsfelden/Brugg (Conference ‘Digitales Kulturerbe: Zugang, Vernetzung und Darstellung’)

• 21 Jun 2018: Levels of Abstraction – Historical Documents in a Digital World, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade (Keynote, International Workshop for Researchers and Archivists, Creative Europe Programme)

• 18 Apr 2018: Filologia digitale, University of Padova (Filologie a confronto V – Filologia e digital humanities)

• 12 Feb 2018: Digital Philology, Hesburgh Library's Center for Digital Scholarship, University of Notre Dame

• 12 Jan 2018: Digital Textual Criticism, Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice (ERC StG Project BIFLOW)

• 7 Dec 2017: A Brief History of Imaging Technologies in Textual Scholarship, Centre for Theory of History, University of Belgrade

• 22 Nov 2017: People from the Past – Patrick, the Emperor and Pessoa through their Writings, Charles University, Prague (Digital Humanities and the Study of the Past)

• 17 Oct 2017: Textual Plurality and the Critical Text in Digital and Traditional Scholarly Editions, Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies at Ghent University (Autumn School ‘Editing Medieval Texts – Techniques, Opportunities and Challenges’)

• 26 Sept 2017: Experience Report on Marie Curie Action „DiXiT“, University of Cologne (Workshop ‘Förderprogramme der strukturierten Doktorandenausbildung’)

• 3 Aug 2017: Editionen am CCeH zwischen fachlicher Vielfalt und technischer Konvergenz (with Peter Dängeli), Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (Editionsportal Thüringen)

• 3 Jul 2017: Editing Medieval Texts: Theories, Practices, and Challenges in the Digital Age, Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice (ERC StG Project BIFLOW)

• 24 May 2017: Digital Philology: Theories and Practices (with Ulrike Henny & Patrick Sahle), University of Cologne (Conference of the DAAD-Research-Exchange Program ‘Philology in the Making’)

• 4 Apr 2017: Digitale Textkritik im Dies- und Jenseits der Apparate, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (Studiengruppe Historische Semantik)

• 16 Feb 2017: Digital Philology and the (cr)apparatus, University of Potsdam (Keynote, Interdisciplinary Workshop ‘Classical Philology Goes Digital’, Volkswagenstiftung)

• 6 Oct 2016: DiXiT: Research, Training, and Networking in the Field of Digital Editing (with Susan Schreibman & Elena Pierazzo), University of Antwerp (Annual conference of the European Society for Textual Scholarship)

• 30 Jun 2016: Zur kritischen Online-Edition von Wilhelm von Auxerres Summa de officiis ecclesiasticis, Universität Freiburg (Internationale Akademiekonferenz ‘Digital Classics: Editing, Interpreting, Teaching’)

• 14 Jun 2016: Die Rolle der Informationswissenschaften in den Digital Humanities, FH Potsdam (Probevortrag Professur für Digital Humanities)

• 25 Jun 2015: Requirements of the ‘critical’ for a digital corpus of scholarly editions, University of Oklahoma (Mellon Foundation, ‘Digital Latin Library’ International expert seminar)

• 25 Mar 2015: Oh When the Saints… Editing Medieval Texts in the Digital Age, University of Notre Dame, Indiana (PhD Program in Literature)