Dr Elsa Devienne

Assistant Professor

School: Humanities and Social Sciences

I joined Northumbria University in 2019, having previously taught at Princeton University, Université Paris Nanterre, Science Po Paris and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. I am a scholar of the twentieth-century United States with expertise in environmental history, urban history, the history of the body and, more recently, discard studies and the history of waste. What brings together these various fields is, fundamentally, my interest in understanding things of our everyday life: the mundane, the ordinary, the stuff that we don't notice or question. This line of inquiry is what led me to write my first book on the history of Los Angeles' beaches which is also, more broadly, a history of the modern beach. And this is what is behind the two projects I am currently pursuing on the history of plastics and on everyday mobilities.

My first monograph was initially published in French (Sorbonne Editions, 2020) before coming out in English in an augmented version with a new epilogue (Oxford University Press, 2024) under the title Sand Rush: The Revival of the Beach in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles. To date, the book has received over twenty reviews including in major newspapers such as Le Monde and The Los Angeles Times. It has won the 2021 Willi Paul Adams Award awarded by the Organization of American Historians, the 2025 Arthur Miller First Book Prize, the 2025 W. Turrentine Jackson Award and an honourable mention in the French Society of Anglophone Studies Book Prize (2021).

I am also the author of several award-winning articles published in academic journals in the US and Europe, including in The Journal of Urban History, The European Journal of American Studies, California History, and Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire. I have edited two special issues: with sociologist Jennifer Bidet, I co-edited "Beaches: Contested Territories," for the leading French sociology journal Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales (2019); with Andrew Diamond, I co-edited "Places and Cultures of Capitalism: Histories from the Grassroots" (2020) for Transatlantica, an American Studies journal. Finally, I co-wrote with urban studies scholar Lisa Brawley D'Après Nature: Frederick Law Olmsted et le park movement (Editions Fahrenheit, 2015).

My research has been supported by grants from the Fulbright Program, the Princeton-Mellon Initiative for Architecture, Urbanism and the Humanities, the British Association of American Studies, the FACE Foundation, the Historical Society of Southern California, the Ahmanson Foundation and the British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grant scheme, among others.

I regularly appear on radio, podcasts and tv shows to speak about my research. In 2025, I co-produced two podcast episodes with journalist Anja Krieger on ocean plastic pollution. In 2022, I was featured on Arte's tv-show "Making History" to talk about "The Parasol and Beach Culture." I also use my expertise to write about topical issues for a general audience. You can find an op-ed (in French) I wrote for Libération in reaction to the 2020 Australian bushfires here, an article on how history can help us save California beaches for Time Magazine (2024) here, and my Top 5 beach reads recommendations for The Wall Street Journal here (2024).

At Northumbria, I contribute to American studies and history modules, including the first-year core module "From Sea to Shining Sea: US History from 1776 to 2008", the second-year module "Affluence & Anxiety: US history 1920-1960" and the third-year module "Red, White and Green: The American Environment through Time." While teaching at Northumbria, I have reflected on the need to historicize the climate crisis and bring environmental issues to the forefront of the American studies curriculum. I have developed these ideas in a recent essay ("Decarbonizing the US History Survey") published in the Journal of American Studies and a roundtable ("Code Red for American Studies") I edited for Transatlantica.

I have been active in several learned societies. Since 2020, I have been a member of the BAAS (British Association of American Studies) executive committee, where I co-lead our sustainability initiative, Green BAAS. I am also currently Regional Representative (France) for the European Society of Environmental History.

Email Elsa

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

My first book, Sand Rush: The Revival of the Beach in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles, recounts the formidable beach modernization campaign that transformed Los Angeles into one of the world’s greatest coastal metropolises, revealing how the city’s man-made shores served as a central locus for the reinvention of seaside leisure and the triumph of modern bodies. Integrating environmental, cultural, and social history, Sand Rush not only uncovers how the Los Angeles coastline was constructed, but also how this major planning and engineering project affected the lives of ordinary city-dwellers and their relationship to nature. It was initially published in French in 2020 by Sorbonne Editions. The French book was reviewed in Le Monde and has inspired several documentaries and parts of an exhibit at the Caen War Museum ("The American Century", 2024).

In parallel to my work on American coastlines, I have explored the history of the body, beauty, nudity, and muscularity. I have published several articles on these topics, including “The Life, Death, and Rebirth of Muscle Beach: Reassessing the Muscular Physique in Postwar America, 1940s-1980s” (Southern California Quarterly) which was awarded the 2019 Doyce B. Nunis, Jr. Award by the Historical Society of Southern California and was highlighted by daily Jstor here.

I am currently developing two new research projects. The first explores the history of anti-plastics activism in the US (and elsewhere) from the 1970s until today, focusing on its role in shaping mainstream environmentalist rhetoric and tactics and its relationships with connected fights, such as climate change, and environmental justice demands. I was recently awarded a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grant (2025-27) to develop this research and co-produce two podcast episodes on the citizen science beach cleanup movement. My first article on the subject, on the history of the ocean plastic pollution crisis, was published in September 2025 in Environmental History.

The second looks at the history of pedestrianism and air pollution in US and UK cities from the perspective of parents and children. This short piece I wrote on the history of the school run in the UK will give you a taste of what I am trying to achieve with this research.

Whether writing on beaches, air pollution or plastics, I am inspired by the movement and histories of Environmental Justice. My research shows how our environments have been changed to benefit the livelihoods and health of some people to the detriment of others—often the most vulnerable communities.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Sand Rush: The Revival of the Beach in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles, Devienne, E. 1 May 2024
Making Plastics Count: Citizen Science Beach Cleanups and the Ocean Plastic Pollution Crisis (1980s-2020s), Devienne, E. 1 Oct 2025, In: Environmental History
Introduction: Code Red for American Studies: Embedding Climate and Environmental Justice in the American Studies Curriculum, Devienne, E. 15 Dec 2022, In: Transatlantica
Urban Renewal by the Sea: Reinventing the Beach for the Suburban Age in Postwar Los Angeles, Devienne, E. 1 Jan 2019, In: Journal of Urban History

Current and Recent Projects

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
The War on Plastics: A History of the Anti-Plastics Movement in the US and the UK, Devienne, E. (Principal Investigator), British Academy, 01/01/25 - 31/12/26, £7,642.00

PGR Supervision

Samuel Vydulinska Start Date: 01/10/2025 End Date: 17/10/2025
Samuel Vydulinska Natural engineers or cultural animals? Imagining beavers around the turn of the 20th century Start Date: 01/10/2025