Jean-Luc Fournet is a papyrologist specializing in the Proto-Byzantine period (4th-7th centuries). After studying at the École Normale de Saint-Cloud and Paris X-Nanterre University, he was appointed scientific member of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology (IFAO) in Cairo (1992-1996), where he became familiar with Egypt, its sites, and its papyrological collections, and participated in several archaeological missions (Tebtynis and the eastern desert). Here he completed his thesis Hellenism in Egypt in the 6th and 7th centuries. The Library and the Work of Dioscorus of Aphrodite, which was published shortly afterwards by the IFAO and awarded several prizes. He then joined the CNRS as a researcher, affiliated with UMR 7044 (Strasbourg). His work earned him the CNRS bronze medal in 1999.
In 2004, he was elected director of studies at the EPHE (Section of Historical and Philological Sciences) in Greek papyrology, before being elected professor at the Collège de France on the chair of Written Culture of Late Antiquity and Byzantine Papyrology in 2015.
He is a member of the “Monde byzantin” research group of UMR 8167 “Orient et Méditerranée.” Since 2017, he has also been director of studies at the EPHE.
As a papyrus editor, he has developed a holistic approach to documentation, focusing on the interactions between literary and documentary texts. More broadly, he is interested in the culture of late antiquity, particularly multilingualism and the modes of written culture.