Kilian Fleischer

Kilian Fleischer's research focuses on ancient/Hellenistic philosophy, literary/Herculaneum papyrology, digital humanities (innovative imaging methods), ancient historiography, teaching poetry and early Christianity. He is currently working in the Papyrological Team of the Vesuvius Challenge, in the course of which hundreds of closed Herculanic roles are still made readable with a new AI approach. Recently, a first breakthrough was made in virtual unrolling, which is likely to bring out numerous new, previously unknown ancient texts in the near future and have a lasting effect on ancient studies.

After the state examination in Latin/Greek and a diploma in business administration at the University of Würzburg, Kilian Fleischer received his doctorate in Greek studies on Epicureanism and early Christianity in Alexandria (Dionysios of Alexandria). During his studies, he spent a year with papyrological studies in Oxford, while his doctorate for a long time at the University of Notre Dame (USA). After a short research assistant in Oxford, he worked from 2016-2018 as a Marie Curie Fellow on the Herculaneum Papyri in Naples. There he laid the foundation for a commented new edition of Philodem's "History of the Academy", which he completed during his own DFG project in Würzburg as part of his habilitation thesis (2019-2023). Subsequently, he worked in Naples for one year at the GreekSchools project. Kilian Fleischer's research results have received a legitimately high level of scientific and media attention in recent years. After his successful work on the Index Academicorum, Kilian Fleischer now intends to re-edit the similarly well-preserved philosophically and historically relevant papyrus of the Herculaneum Collection, the Index Stoicorum, in the course of his new research project based in Tübingen.