Elsa Devienne
@elsadevienne.bsky.social
Historian | Made in 🇫🇷 Lives in 🇬🇧 Writes about 🇺🇲 | Envtal Justice, Beaches, Cities, Plastics | 📘 SAND RUSH: THE REVIVAL OF THE BEACH IN 20TH-CENTURY LA 🏖️ | 🚲 +🚶🏻♂️ advocate | Here for work but also random stuff
Pinned
Elsa Devienne
@elsadevienne.bsky.social
· Sep 19
👩 Meet Linda Maraniss
⭐ In 1986, she visited Padre Island National Seashore, in Texas.
🏖️ She expected a beach.
🤢 She found a landfill.
▶️ Listen to ep 2 of our "Early Heroines of Plastic Pollution" series to find out what happened afterwards
tinyurl.com/4xsvnbv3
#InternationalCoastalCleanup
⭐ In 1986, she visited Padre Island National Seashore, in Texas.
🏖️ She expected a beach.
🤢 She found a landfill.
▶️ Listen to ep 2 of our "Early Heroines of Plastic Pollution" series to find out what happened afterwards
tinyurl.com/4xsvnbv3
#InternationalCoastalCleanup
How things are going
Northumbria University attempts to move employees to cheaper pension scheme to bring down sky-high contribution rates
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/northumbria-freeze-staff-pay-if-they-refuse-switch-pensions
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/northumbria-freeze-staff-pay-if-they-refuse-switch-pensions
November 10, 2025 at 9:34 AM
How things are going
When your mum is proper old school but there's a cake to bake
November 8, 2025 at 5:18 PM
When your mum is proper old school but there's a cake to bake
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
Appreciate the work we do to get environmental history and humanities into public spaces? Help us continue to do this work by supporting our November fundraising campaign!
fundrazr.com/niche2025?re...
#envhist #envhum #cdnhist #histgeog
fundrazr.com/niche2025?re...
#envhist #envhum #cdnhist #histgeog
Help NiCHE Write the Next Chapter of Environmental History: 2025 Campaign
The Network in Canadian History and Environment is a not-for-profit public history organization dedicated to the dissemination of environmental history research in Canada and building a network of res...
fundrazr.com
November 3, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Appreciate the work we do to get environmental history and humanities into public spaces? Help us continue to do this work by supporting our November fundraising campaign!
fundrazr.com/niche2025?re...
#envhist #envhum #cdnhist #histgeog
fundrazr.com/niche2025?re...
#envhist #envhum #cdnhist #histgeog
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
Bit late to this but it's such a clever piece of AI criticism, developing a literary critique of Sam Altman's auto-metafiction story as a way to explore the grave threats to the "intellectual infrastructure" of the humanities - and HE more broadly - posed by AI lareviewofbooks.org/article/lite...
Literature Is Not a Vibe: On ChatGPT and the Humanities | Los Angeles Review of Books
Rachele Dini discusses OpenAI’s “A Machine-Shaped Hand” and an academic sector in crisis.
lareviewofbooks.org
November 7, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Bit late to this but it's such a clever piece of AI criticism, developing a literary critique of Sam Altman's auto-metafiction story as a way to explore the grave threats to the "intellectual infrastructure" of the humanities - and HE more broadly - posed by AI lareviewofbooks.org/article/lite...
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
Devastated to share the news that was broken to colleagues in Music (and other departments) at the University of Nottingham yesterday. This is obviously a very difficult time for us and our students.
Please contact us on protectuonmusic@gmail.com if you would like to be involved.
Please contact us on protectuonmusic@gmail.com if you would like to be involved.
November 6, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Devastated to share the news that was broken to colleagues in Music (and other departments) at the University of Nottingham yesterday. This is obviously a very difficult time for us and our students.
Please contact us on protectuonmusic@gmail.com if you would like to be involved.
Please contact us on protectuonmusic@gmail.com if you would like to be involved.
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
One of my unsupported hot takes is that the loneliness crisis is caused in part by people not being bored enough. In most of my classes the students all stare at their phones until class begins. We’ve lost the precious boredom of eventually actually being bored enough to engage with others.
November 5, 2025 at 2:54 PM
One of my unsupported hot takes is that the loneliness crisis is caused in part by people not being bored enough. In most of my classes the students all stare at their phones until class begins. We’ve lost the precious boredom of eventually actually being bored enough to engage with others.
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
This is basically my explanation for everything that is wrong with everything today
Time Is a Bitch: On Cinematic Snore Core
Some recent films that try to bore us for the greater good
doctorwaffle.substack.com
November 5, 2025 at 11:59 PM
This is basically my explanation for everything that is wrong with everything today
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
The #1 lesson from yesterday’s blowout:
Humanities majors killed on the job market
1) Mamdani- Africana Studies
2) Spanberger -French
3) Sherill - Global History
Humanities majors killed on the job market
1) Mamdani- Africana Studies
2) Spanberger -French
3) Sherill - Global History
November 5, 2025 at 3:59 PM
The #1 lesson from yesterday’s blowout:
Humanities majors killed on the job market
1) Mamdani- Africana Studies
2) Spanberger -French
3) Sherill - Global History
Humanities majors killed on the job market
1) Mamdani- Africana Studies
2) Spanberger -French
3) Sherill - Global History
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
Not difficult. Not expensive. Not untried.
Your city's leaders don't even need to lead, just follow good models like this that have worked elsewhere. Sadly, this is too much to ask in many cases.
Your city's leaders don't even need to lead, just follow good models like this that have worked elsewhere. Sadly, this is too much to ask in many cases.
If you’re interested in making streets safer, check this video out. By simply adding modal filters, neighborhoods can eliminate rat-running traffic and make streets more peaceful. These streets can also act as safe thru-ways for people on bikes.
This is LIVE! And everyone needs to see the benefits of Low Traffic Neighborhoods from London! There is so little good documentation and this needs to be spread far & wide! Thanks for giving it a watch.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaRc...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaRc...
November 5, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Not difficult. Not expensive. Not untried.
Your city's leaders don't even need to lead, just follow good models like this that have worked elsewhere. Sadly, this is too much to ask in many cases.
Your city's leaders don't even need to lead, just follow good models like this that have worked elsewhere. Sadly, this is too much to ask in many cases.
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
Today’s #AutumnArrivalSpotlight shines on the Starling!
Forget fireworks...Autumn’s skies come alive with magnificent murmurations: vast, swirling clouds of Starlings dancing at dusk.
One of nature's greatest spectacles. 😍
Forget fireworks...Autumn’s skies come alive with magnificent murmurations: vast, swirling clouds of Starlings dancing at dusk.
One of nature's greatest spectacles. 😍
November 5, 2025 at 7:16 AM
Today’s #AutumnArrivalSpotlight shines on the Starling!
Forget fireworks...Autumn’s skies come alive with magnificent murmurations: vast, swirling clouds of Starlings dancing at dusk.
One of nature's greatest spectacles. 😍
Forget fireworks...Autumn’s skies come alive with magnificent murmurations: vast, swirling clouds of Starlings dancing at dusk.
One of nature's greatest spectacles. 😍
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
15 million Americans are going to lose their health care.
October 31, 2025 at 10:04 PM
15 million Americans are going to lose their health care.
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
Cheating with an LLM is the easiest thing in the world for a student to do, but it creates a massive, laborious headache for a prof, if you intend to take it seriously. There’s meetings, emails, discussions, moral dilemmas. It’s just incredibly burdensome, on top of everything else right now.
I had 9 meetings about students using Chat GPT/LLMs on their papers today.
If you want to know why professors burn out, ask anyone trying to teach critical thinking and writing skills to Freshmen....
If you want to know why professors burn out, ask anyone trying to teach critical thinking and writing skills to Freshmen....
October 28, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Cheating with an LLM is the easiest thing in the world for a student to do, but it creates a massive, laborious headache for a prof, if you intend to take it seriously. There’s meetings, emails, discussions, moral dilemmas. It’s just incredibly burdensome, on top of everything else right now.
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
An LLM-produced essay is tangible proof that a student doesn’t care, and yet responding to it properly requires hour upon hour of careful work. It’s asymmetrical and overwhelming.
October 28, 2025 at 12:57 PM
An LLM-produced essay is tangible proof that a student doesn’t care, and yet responding to it properly requires hour upon hour of careful work. It’s asymmetrical and overwhelming.
I passed!!!!!!!
But do you know what is the legal age to ride a moped?
How many people sit in a jury in Scotland?
Whether the police is a constitutional institution?
If not then you'd have trouble becoming British. This test is no joke!!
But do you know what is the legal age to ride a moped?
How many people sit in a jury in Scotland?
Whether the police is a constitutional institution?
If not then you'd have trouble becoming British. This test is no joke!!
Revising for my life in the UK test while reading the news is peak cognitive dissonance 😵💫
October 22, 2025 at 11:40 AM
I passed!!!!!!!
But do you know what is the legal age to ride a moped?
How many people sit in a jury in Scotland?
Whether the police is a constitutional institution?
If not then you'd have trouble becoming British. This test is no joke!!
But do you know what is the legal age to ride a moped?
How many people sit in a jury in Scotland?
Whether the police is a constitutional institution?
If not then you'd have trouble becoming British. This test is no joke!!
Revising for my life in the UK test while reading the news is peak cognitive dissonance 😵💫
October 22, 2025 at 9:57 AM
Revising for my life in the UK test while reading the news is peak cognitive dissonance 😵💫
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
this makes me feel physically ill
Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs
- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
Harvard FAS Cuts Ph.D. Seats By More Than Half Across Next Two Admissions Cycles | News | The Harvard Crimson
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences slashed the number of Ph.D. student admissions slots for the Science division by more than 75 percent and for the Arts & Humanities division by about 60 percent for th...
www.thecrimson.com
October 21, 2025 at 5:42 PM
this makes me feel physically ill
Just another day of major political figures telling me (and millions of others) we should go back "home" 😑
October 21, 2025 at 8:03 AM
Just another day of major political figures telling me (and millions of others) we should go back "home" 😑
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
![1
Nurse:
It’s become a real problem in this area
2
Nurse:
We’ve seen the whole community lost to addiction
3
Show a building sign posted:
Westminster ‘X’ Addiction Clinic
With various Westminster people or looking at their phones outside it
Nurse:
Ministers, Spads, Researchers…
4
Nurse:
Most mornings we’ll get a call about someone acting strangely
[Nurse on phone taking a call]
Ok - we’ll be right over
5
Nurse:
We just have a gentle chat
[Nurses approach a minister –Robert Jenrick? - standing in the Palace of Westminster
Minister:
I understand your concerns…
6
Nurse:
Are you OK love?
Minister:
Yes I’m just hearing legitimate concerns from real voters
7
Nurse:
That’s a robot, a Nazi and a poorly-disguised Russian
[Show that the people he is talking to are precisely these characters]
Nurse 2:
Give us your phone, love
8
Nurse:
At the clinic we put them in a Grass-Touching Pod, with a real voter to talk to
[We see them back at the clinic, holding the minister's head and pushing him into a glass isolation booth with a grass floor. And it is a baffled looking woman, on a chair, ready to talk to him.]
9
Minister:
YOU MUST BE WORRIED ABOUT THE COMING CIVIL WAR
[woman looks baffled]
10
woman:
I just want a bus service
Minister:
LOOK AT MY FLAG
[produces a St George's flag]
[ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreicahofq6s4xow7vowj7dx6odw6ejdwr4kwcmzta7qwi4hg2nvywji@jpeg)
Give our American studies social media person a raise 🤣🤣!!
Great to see President Trump has been reading @elsadevienne.bsky.social's award-winning book, "Sand Rush: The Revival of the Beach in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles" and has been reflecting on the history of the "beach body." global.oup.com/academic/pro...
Trump: "I'm just a little busy. I'd love to go to Argentina. I'd like to be like Biden. I'd like to go to the beach. My legs are not quite as thin as his. My legs are slightly heavier, my arms are slightly larger. My body is a little bit larger than his. I'm not sure it would be appreciated."
October 17, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Give our American studies social media person a raise 🤣🤣!!
I think I can now start calling myself a historian of the American West without feeling like an impostor 😅🥳
October 13, 2025 at 4:52 PM
I think I can now start calling myself a historian of the American West without feeling like an impostor 😅🥳
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
I just wanted to share some more photos from the great beach history tour led by @elsadevienne.bsky.social and
alisonrosejefferson.com in Santa Monica today as part of the Urban History Association’s conference!
#UHA2025LA
alisonrosejefferson.com in Santa Monica today as part of the Urban History Association’s conference!
#UHA2025LA
October 13, 2025 at 4:27 AM
I just wanted to share some more photos from the great beach history tour led by @elsadevienne.bsky.social and
alisonrosejefferson.com in Santa Monica today as part of the Urban History Association’s conference!
#UHA2025LA
alisonrosejefferson.com in Santa Monica today as part of the Urban History Association’s conference!
#UHA2025LA
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
Echoing that thanks!
A terrific tour + chance to talk more about race, recreation + landscape history not only with @elsadevienne.bsky.social, learning from her new pub * #SandRush *, but also @lawrencecphd.bsky.social, whose first book *The Frontier of Leisure* examines these themes, too! #envhist
A terrific tour + chance to talk more about race, recreation + landscape history not only with @elsadevienne.bsky.social, learning from her new pub * #SandRush *, but also @lawrencecphd.bsky.social, whose first book *The Frontier of Leisure* examines these themes, too! #envhist
The #UHA2025LA conference today included excellent tour of the historically #Black neighborhood of Belmar & LA's iconic #musclebeach with historians Elsa Devienne @elsadevienne.bsky.social & Alison Rose Jefferson. A deeply informative, engaging morning! Thank you Elsa & Alison! #LosAngeles #history
October 12, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Echoing that thanks!
A terrific tour + chance to talk more about race, recreation + landscape history not only with @elsadevienne.bsky.social, learning from her new pub * #SandRush *, but also @lawrencecphd.bsky.social, whose first book *The Frontier of Leisure* examines these themes, too! #envhist
A terrific tour + chance to talk more about race, recreation + landscape history not only with @elsadevienne.bsky.social, learning from her new pub * #SandRush *, but also @lawrencecphd.bsky.social, whose first book *The Frontier of Leisure* examines these themes, too! #envhist
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
It ended with @elsadevienne.bsky.social sharing key insights from #SandRush on the cultural & #envhist of LA's #beaches. Check out the award-winning books *Sand Rush* & *Living the California Dream* to learn more! global.oup.com/academic/pro... uk.linkedin.com/in/elsa-devi... alisonrosejefferson.com
October 12, 2025 at 9:36 PM
It ended with @elsadevienne.bsky.social sharing key insights from #SandRush on the cultural & #envhist of LA's #beaches. Check out the award-winning books *Sand Rush* & *Living the California Dream* to learn more! global.oup.com/academic/pro... uk.linkedin.com/in/elsa-devi... alisonrosejefferson.com
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
The #UHA2025LA conference today included excellent tour of the historically #Black neighborhood of Belmar & LA's iconic #musclebeach with historians Elsa Devienne @elsadevienne.bsky.social & Alison Rose Jefferson. A deeply informative, engaging morning! Thank you Elsa & Alison! #LosAngeles #history
October 12, 2025 at 8:59 PM
The #UHA2025LA conference today included excellent tour of the historically #Black neighborhood of Belmar & LA's iconic #musclebeach with historians Elsa Devienne @elsadevienne.bsky.social & Alison Rose Jefferson. A deeply informative, engaging morning! Thank you Elsa & Alison! #LosAngeles #history
Reposted by Elsa Devienne
@lawrencecphd.bsky.social @elsadevienne.bsky.social and Kara Schilchting will share new work emerging from their book projects and research. See below for the program and some previews! #UHA2025LA
October 11, 2025 at 11:05 AM
@lawrencecphd.bsky.social @elsadevienne.bsky.social and Kara Schilchting will share new work emerging from their book projects and research. See below for the program and some previews! #UHA2025LA