Laurence Marie

Research interests
18^th Century: History of Emotions and Aesthetic Ideas, Theater and Performance in Europe and the Atlantic World, Disability studies
 
I hold an ‘agrégation de Lettres modernes’ and a Ph.D. in Comparative literature from La Sorbonne University in Paris. Prior to coming to New York, I taught French and comparative literature for 10 years in French universities, mostly at La Sorbonne. Between 1999 and 2014, I was a member of the journal Labyrinthe. Atelier interdisciplinaire (and its co-director from 2004 to 2007). I was a freelance writer for the weeklies Le Nouvel Observateur, Elle Magazine and Le Monde des livres. And I worked for 3.5 years as a speech writer and advisor to the French Minister of European Affairs, and of Higher Education and Research. 

In 2012, I came to New York to lead of the Book and Ideas department at the French Embassy in the United States (villa Albertine), promoting French and Francophone writers nationwide. I curated a year-long Proust festival, helped create Albertine French bookstore, coordinated several yearly French-American Albertine festivals, helped curate an exhibition on Francophone graphic novels at Cooper Union, and organized the first Night of Philosophy in the U.S.  

In 2016, when my four-year diplomatic appointment came to an end, I was recruited at Columbia University. Since then, I have been a lecturer at the Department of French, teaching French language and literature (Introduction to Literary studies, a course on passions and emotions in the 18^th century, and a new one on the Goncourt Prize finalists). In 2022, I became a faculty advisor to Columbia French Cultural Society, a club of undergraduate students interested in French and Francophone culture. For almost a decade, I’ve also been teaching a contemporary French and Francophone literature class (“Machines à écrire”) at NYU: every semester, my students read, discuss, and meet in person two writers chosen and invited by French cultural journalist Laure Adler. 
 
I was the recipient of Columbia University 2025 Division of Humanities Faculty Recognition Award for Academic Excellence.
 
My current research project focuses on the experiences and education of people who were born deaf in France and the US since the 18th century. I am also working on a Gallimard Folio Classique edition of Denis Diderot’s Lettre sur les aveugles and Lettre sur les sourds et muets (to be published in 2027). 
 
 
Selected publications  

Book 
Inventer l’acteur. Émotions et spectacle dans l’Europe des Lumières (Sorbonne Université Presses, 2019). Recipient of the Albertine Translation Fund Award in 2024
 

• Reviewed in Le Monde des livres(03/28/2019), Le Nouvel Observateur(05/09/2019), La Vie des idées (09/23/2021), The French Review (93/4, May 2020), French Studies (07/29/2020), Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies (Sept. 2020), Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France (2020, n° 4), H-France Review(March 2021), Double jeu(n° 17, May 2021), Revue Dix-huitième siècle (2021/1, n° 53), Rassegna della letteratura italiana (126, 1, 2021), Ação : Arte do Ator em revivista(2021, 1/1, July 1, 2021), Eighteenth Century Studies (2022, vol. 55, 3, Spring 2022), Annual Bulletin of The Japanese Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (n°37, June 2022), Drammaturgia (09/29/2022)

Collective volumes  
Les Paradoxes du comédien. 50 regards sur le métier d’acteur (Gallimard, coll. “Hors-série littérature, 2024)
 

• Reviewed in “Le Masque et la Plume” (France Inter radio : host Rebecca Manzoni’s coup de coeur), interview on Radio Chrétienne Francophone (Effervescence, 22 mars 2024), Le Figaro, Libération, L’Express, Transfuge (édito Scène, mars 2024), Les Inrocks, La Revue des deux mondes (mai-juin 2024), Le Soir, Actualitté, Non Fiction, En attendant Nadeau , Mare nostrum

Emotions Hit the Stage (16^th-21^st Century), eds with S. Chaouche. European Drama and Performance Studies, 2021/2, n° 17
 
Chapter « Le théâtre », in Histoire des traductions en langue française. XVII^e-XVIII^e siècles, Verdier, 2014, pp. 855-948 (with co-coordinator C. Lechevalier) 
 
Réécritures du crime. L’acte sanglant sur la scène, in Littératures classiques, n°67, 2008/3 (with F. Lecercle and Z. Schweitzer) 
 
Revues, modes d’emploi, in Labyrinthe, n° 31 (with P. Savy) 
 
 
Editions 
 

• Denis Diderot’s Paradoxe du comédien, Gallimard, coll. Folio classique, 2024
• Deux courtes pièces autour du mariage : Feydeau – Labiche, GF Étonnants classiques, n°10356
• Marivaux, La Double Inconstance, GF Étonnants classiques, n°10336

  
Most recent articles on the 18^th century
On Colonial Theater in the Atlantic World
 

• “Rivages sauvages et unions interethniques sur la scène du XVIII^e siècle”, L’Île dans les dramaturgies européennes, Classiques Garnier, forthcoming
• “Voltaire sous les Tropiques : la réception de Voltaire sur les scènes coloniales de Saint-Domingue”, in Les scènes de Voltaire, entre la cour et la ville, Revue Voltaire, 22, 2024
• “Figaro à Saint-Domingue”, in Les Lumières du théâtre. Avec Pierre Frantz, Classiques Garnier, 2022, p. 281-288
• “Talks about theater in Saint-Domingue’s Affiches américaines (1766-1791): a public voice on a public space?” in J. Leichman and K. Bénac-Giroux eds. Colonialism and Slavery in Performance: Theatre and the eighteenth-century French Caribbean, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, Liverpool UP, 2021, pp. 139-165

 
On Visual Performance and emotions
 

• “La rhétorique ou l’éloquence: l’orateur, l’acteur et les émotions de la Révolution française” in R. Bret-Vitoz and T. Julian eds. ‘Un spectacle dérobé à l’histoire’: théâtres et émotions de la Révolution française, Revue Orages, Presses universitaires Blaise-Pascal, Spring 2025, p. 273-286
• Book review of Suzanne Rochefort’s Vies théâtrales, in La Vie des idées, Nov. 2024
• Interview with stage director Séverine Chavrier in La Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF), Summer 2024
• “The making of French neo-classical tragedy and the invention of modern performance” in H. Bilis and E. McClure eds. Teaching French Neo-Classical Tragedy, PMLA, Options for Teaching 55, 2021, p. 117-131
• “La sensibilité féminine, modèle pour la réforme du théâtre au xviii^e siècle?” in S. Chaouche and L. Marie eds. Emotions Hit the Stage - 16^th-21^st Century, European Drama and Performance Studies, 2021/2, n° 17, p. 203-224
• “Othello à Paris, ou les scandales en série ?” in B. Filippi, F. Lecercle, L. Norman and C. Thouret eds. Théâtre et scandale, in Fabula, “Colloques en ligne”, Sept. 2020

 
On the reception of Shakespeare 
 

•  “Othello à Paris, ou les scandales en série ?” in B. Filippi, F. Lecercle, L. Norman and C. Thouret eds. Théâtre et scandale, in Fabula, “Colloques en ligne”, Sept. 2020
• “L’entrée de Shakespeare au répertoire de la Comédie-Française” in C. Biet ed. Littératures classiques 2018/1, n°95: “La question du répertoire au théâtre”, pp. 181-190
• “’Juger le procès entre la tragédie de Londres et la tragédie de Paris’: Shakespeare contre le modèle tragique français ?”, in F. Lecercle and C. Thouret eds. La Haine de Shakespeare, Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, coll. E-Theatrum mundi, 2017

 
Media
Podcast "Les enquêtes du Louvre", Lady Macbeth Sleepwalking by Fuseli,  Louvre, January 2022 

Qu'est-ce que la promotion du livre?, Radio France Internationale, March 2014

La Dispute in New York: littérature, Radio France Culture, May 2, 2014 

"Mais bien sûr que si, les livres français se vendent à l'étranger!", Bibliobs, Le Nouvel Observateur, 2013

"La littérature française a-t-elle la cote aux Etats-Unis?" BFM TV, Le Grand journal de New York, 2013