Cornelius Herz studied German, English, Latin, and education before working as a teacher and as a media consultant (Medienberatung NRW 2012-2014) for the Ministry of Education in North Rhine-Westphalia.

After completing his doctorate on historical media change and educational processes in 2012, he also worked at the Ruhr University Bochum on a quantitative empirical study on beliefs about the goals of literature teaching (2019) as part of his habilitation. Since 2020, as a university professor of German literature didactics at Leibniz University Hannover, he has expanded his research interests to include digital humanities, digital literacy, and reading in the context of inclusive social participation in times of media change, as well as critical-reflexive didactics.