In the nearly one hundred years since her death in 1934 at the age of 67, Marie Curie has been the subject of myriad biographies. Curie herself was famously reticent, explaining to a would-be biographer that ‘In science we should be interested in things, not persons.’ Nevertheless, she produced the first account of her life: a brief memoir she included alongside the biography she wrote of her husband Pierre following his untimely death in 1906. In turn, Curie’s daughter Eve produced an imaginative and rich portrait of her mother in 1938, drawing on correspondence and diaries many of which were subsequently lost.

In the nearly hundred years since then, Curie has never surrendered her status as the ‘first’ woman of science. She has been the subject of (and sometimes subjected to) accounts in graphic, illustrated and narrative form for children and adults, as well as numerous radio and film treatments. This seminar will be structured as a conversation about these many lives of Marie Curie and what they can tell us about what public history of science looks like when practised by amateurs, professionals and those somewhere in between—and what we should aspire for it to be

Sarah Dry is a historian of science with a particular interest in the history of climate science, systems thinking, and biography. She is the author of a biography of Curie: A Life (Haus Publishing, 2025).

Stéphane Van Damme is the Director of the Maison Française d’Oxford. He has published widely on the history of modern European science and culture and is a regular contributor to the science and medicine supplement of Le Monde.