Where science, literature, and the senses converge.
PhD, cross disciplinary thinker, writer and educator. Twenty years mapping the territory where the humanities, neuroscience and embodied intelligence meet. Based in Paris, working internationnally.
Marie Berne is writer, educator and speaker working at the crossroads of sensory intelligence, literature, culture, and neuroscience. She hold a PhD in Comparative Literature (UBC), speaks English, French, Spanish and Italian, and has spent years training as specialist of sensations with a particular focus on smell, taste and touch.
After more than a decade teaching literature and cultural studies accross four continents (Vancouver, Hong Kong, London and Paris), she turned her attention to the intelligence of the body. She trained as certified aromatherapist, studied oenology and tea building a long-standing collaboration with London tea merchant Postcard teas, spanning sourcing, sensory training, education and communication.
She works internationally as a course creator, content creator, teacher, and writer, and hosts workshops and gatherings in Paris, where she lives. She founded Coming Back to Your Senses — a cross-disciplinary research and teaching studio at the intersection of language, culture, nature, neuroscience and the humanities — and Aromesis, a free weekly olfactory laboratory open to all, every Friday in Paris.
Her published work spans an essay on rhetoric (Éloge de l’idiotie, Brill, 2009), a novel (Le grand amour de la pieuvre, L’Arbre vengeur, 2017), a translation of G.K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday (L’homme qu’on appelait Jeudi, L’Arbre vengeur, 2021), peer-reviewed articles, poems, and creative pieces across several languages.
EDUCATION & POSITIONS
PhD in Comparative Literature (UBC, Vancouver, 2005) Book: Eloge de l’idiotie, 2009
Lecturer and Researcher in Literature and Cultural Studies in Canada, Hong Kong and UK 2000-2015
Certified Aromatherapist (Aromahead, USA 2020-2025)
Qualification Maître de conference, CNU, France (2012)
Translator freelance (2003-present)
Herbal, Tea and Wine Sourcing, Sales and Consulting (2006-present) :
Talks and Cultural workshops (2016-present): literature, senses, tea, wine, etc.
PUBLICATIONS
Essay — In Praise of Idiocy. Amsterdam / New York: Brill, 2009
Novel — The Octopus’s Great Love. L’Arbre vengeur, 2017
Literary Translation — The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton. L’Arbre vengeur, 2021
Article — “The Poetic Intelligence of Smell,” In Essence (Spring 2026) [forthcoming]
Article — “Coming Back to Your Senses,” International Journal of Professional Holistic Aromatherapy (IJPHA) (Summer 2026) [forthcoming]
Article — “Not a Guinea Pig but a Star: A Close-Up of the Living Animal in Jean Painlevé,” Studies in French Cinema, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 216–231
Poetry — “The Last Beach of Hong Kong,” in L’intranquille 21. L’Atelier de l’agneau, 2020
Article — “Idiocy in the Family: Rhetoric and Politics of the Idiot in Flaubert and Beckett,” in Flaubert, Beckett, NDiaye: The Aesthetics, Emotions and Politics of Failure. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2017
Article — “Self-Portrait of the Scientist as Artist: Jean Painlevé and the Rhetoric of the In-Between,” in Mnemosyne, or the Construction of Meaning. Presses Universitaires de Louvain, 6 (2013), pp. 143–157
Article — “Beckett in China in Paris: Beckettian Resonances in Gao Xingjian,” Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui 23 (2012): 127–141
Article — “What If Béranger Were an Idiot?”, Eugène Ionesco, Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Otago French Notes, vol. 2 (2009): 15–34
Translation — Clare Finburgh, “Behind the Screen: War on Television on the English Stage,” Théâtre/Public, no. 212, 2012–2013
Translation — Fiona Yuk-wa Law, review of Kam Louie (ed.), Hong Kong Culture: Word and Image, China Perspectives, 2012/3
Translation — David Bray, “Urban Planning Goes Rural: Conceptualising the New Village,” China Perspectives, 2013/4
You were my student years ago; I praised your beautiful thesis on idiocy in my book (Bréviaire de la bêtise, Gallimard, 2008, pages 195-7) and I consider your new manuscript as a remarkable text, one of the most original I have read in years.
Alain Roger
Marie Berne’s writing matches perfectly her aquatic topic; some moments sound like clear-crystal poetic prose. We genuinely sympathize with this octopus in love, and with her wonderful tribute to a visionary and fantastic filmmaker [Jean Painlevé…]. We believe in this love upsetting the borders between animal and human. Made of a melancholic and gentle music, the novel nearly makes us listen to Satie, Ravel and Milhaud…
Maud Simonnot
La conversation scientifique
BOOKS
Éloge de l’idiotie. Amsterdam, New York : Rodopi/Brill, 2009, 289 p. (http://www.brill.com/products/book/eloge-de-lidiotie); Read some of it Here
Le grand amour de la pieuvre (novel August 24th 2017, Editions de l’Arbre vengeur) Website : www.legrandamourdelapieuvre.com
ENGLISH> FRENCH
FRENCH> ENGLISH
SPANISH> FRENCH
ACADEMIC WRITING (HUMANITIES AND ARTS)
LITERATURE (NOVELS)
PUBLISHED TRANSLATION
G.K. Chesterton. L’homme qu’on appelait jeudi. L’arbre vengeur, 2020. More info
Jie Li’s Book Review of Sheldon H. Lu and Jiayan Mi ed., Chinese Ecocinema in the Age of Environmental Challenge. Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 2009, 370 pages. Perspectives chinoises, 2012/3, 2012.https://perspectiveschinoises.revues.org/6366
Fiona Yuk-wa Law’s Book Review of Kam Louie ed., Hong Kong Culture: Word and Image. Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 2010, 312 pages. Perspectives chinoises, 2012/3, 2012 https://perspectiveschinoises.revues.org/6367
Clare Finburgh « Derrière l’écran : la guerre à la télévision sur la scène anglaise ». Théâtre/Public n° 212. États de la scène actuelle : 2012-2013
COMING BACK TO YOUR SENSES
Coming Back to Your Senses is a cross-disciplinary studio where science, humanities and sensory intelligence converge to reconnect us with what we perceive. it includes workshops, research, courses, events, talks and various gathering experiences.
Aromesis is an olfactory experience that awakens and trains the intelligence of smell. The name weaves “aroma” and “nemesis” together for an encounter with smell that is also, in some sense, a confrontation. Every Friday 11.15 am in Paris and online.
Book clubs – Weekly gathering around books and literature: book club and “Green Hours” in French and in English with the app Marcel : https://www.marcel-lit.fr/
marie8berne@gmail.com /// Linked in /// Instagram