Stephan Jolie (birth name: Fuchs) was born in 1965, and studied German studies, philosophy, and music at the Universities of Frankfurt/Main and Munich. After receiving his doctorate in 1995, he worked until 2002 as Assistant Professor for Medieval German Literature at the Goethe University Frankfurt, where in 2004, he qualified as a university professor in the field of German studies with a special focus on medieval German literature at the Faculty of Modern Languages. After interim professorships at the Universities of Frankfurt/Main and Erlangen-Nürnberg, as well as the FU Berlin, he was appointed as Professor for Medieval Literature at the German Institute of JGU’s Faculty of Philosophy and Philology.

During his time here as Dean (2011-2017), Jolie was particularly involved in the internationalization of student affairs and teaching. From 2007 to 2017, he acted as the German Institute’s Dijon representative and was applicant and spokesperson (2011-2015) of the Deutsch-französische Doktorandenkolleg „Konfigurationen im Wandel: Austausch, Variation, Identität - Configurations nouvelles: Echange, variation, identité“ (funded by the Deutsch-Französische Hochschule/Université franco-allemande DFH-UFA). He was lead applicant, coordinator and spokesperson for the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership "TALC_me: Textual and Literary Cultures in Medieval Europe" (EU-funded, 2014-2017). This partnership focused, among other things, on the opportunities, perspectives, and challenges of international degree programs in the humanities and cultural sciences, and served as the basis for the joint European master’s program “Transnational German Studies (TNGS)”, which has been funded by the EU Commission as an Erasmus Mundus JMD since 2022. Another focus of his work was the strategic development of innovative teaching methods at JGU. Up until 2017, he worked on and developed the Q+ study program as head project manager and, in cooperation with the Staatstheater Mainz, implemented staged performances in innovative teaching projects with students. Stephan Jolie has been Vice President for Studies and Teaching at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz since January 2018 (re-elected for a further term from 2022). Along with his regular duties, he continues to work as spokesperson and project leader of the EU-funded European University Alliance FORTHEM and is a member of the 'Standing Committee on Teaching and Studying' of the German Rectors’ Conference. Since August 2021, he has been leading the campus-wide project "Mainz Models for Digitally Enhanced Teaching and Learning (ModeLL-M)", which is funded by the 'Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre'.