Michael Beddow (3 September 1947 – 2 September 2019) was a British scholar of

German literature German literature () comprises those literature, literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy a ...

, who was also a renowned expert in the application of

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

technologies to web representations of literary corpora, and who was deeply involved with the work of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI).

Academic career

Beddow studied at

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...

, earning a Double First in the Modern and Medieval Languages Tripos in 1969. After taking a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) he became a Research Fellow at

Trinity Hall, Cambridge Trinity Hall (formally The College or Hall of the Holy Trinity in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is the fifth-oldest surviving college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by ...

. His subsequent research for his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

on ''

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novella ...

and the Traditions of the Picaresque Novel and the

Bildungsroman In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood ( coming of age), in which character change is impo ...

'' included a year at the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Wü ...

as Foundation Scholar of the King Edward VII British-German Foundation. Beddow held lecturing posts at Cambridge and

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

before being appointed

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

of German Language and Literature at the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

in 1986. He was an international authority on

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...

, Thomas Mann,

Christa Wolf Christa Wolf (; née Ihlenfeld; 18 March 1929 – 1 December 2011) was a German novelist and essayist.
Barbara Gard ...

and the impact of modernity on German literature. He took early retirement from Leeds in 1998 to pursue a career in IT consultancy.

IT career

Until his death in September 2019, Beddow was for two decades the architect and maintainer of the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, the primary online scholarly reference resource for Buddhist Studies. and the Internet version of the Anglo-Norman Dictionary.The Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub
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Works

* * *''Goethe, Faust I'', Grant & Cutler, 1986, *''The fiction of humanity: studies in the Bildungsroman from Wieland to Thomas Mann'', Cambridge University Press, 1982,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beddow, Michael 1947 births 2019 deaths University of Tübingen alumni Academics of the University of Leeds Academics of King's College London Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge