• Historical linguistics, history of English 

• Historical English lexicology and semantics 

• The social and geographical varieties of English 

• James Joyce 

• Shakespeare 

Andreas Fischer was Professor of English Philology (Language and Medieval Literature) at the University of Zurich from 1985 until 31 July 2008. From August 2008 until November 2013 he served as the University’s President ('Rektor'). He became Emeritus in August 2014. Having studied in Basel and Durham (UK) Andreas Fischer first taught at the University of Basel and – as visiting professor in 1984/85 – at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. At the University of Zurich, he also served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (2004 – 2006) and as one of its Vice-Presidents ('Prorektor Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften', 2006 – 2008). 

In his teaching he covered various aspects of English linguistics (his areas of specialisation being historical linguistics, the history of English, varieties of English, lexicography, lexicology and semantics) as well as medieval English literature. His research interests are the social and geographical varieties of English and, in particular, all aspects of the vocabulary of English. He has published on dialects of English (Dialects in the South-West of England, 1976; An Index of Dialect Maps of Great Britain, 1991), on the history of the English vocabulary (Wedding and Marriage in Old English, 1986 and many articles), and on stylistic aspects of literary texts. 

Andreas Fischer’s publications up to 2011 are listed in Sarah Chevalier and Thomas Honegger (eds.), Words, Words, Words: Philology and Beyond. Festschrift for Andreas Fischer on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (Tübingen: Francke, 2012), pp. ix-xviii 

Since becoming Emeritus he has published two books: 

• Es begann mit Scott und Shakespeare: Eine Geschichte der Anglistik an der Universität Zürich (Zürich: Chronos, 2016) 

• James Joyce in Zurich: A Guide (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan / Springer Nature, 2020) 

Together with a collaborator he is working on an edition of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 2, which will be part of the “Englisch-deutsche Studienausgabe der Dramen Shakespeares”