31 min
3. “LA Paved (the Beach) and Put up a Parking Lot” with Dr. Elsa Devienne California's Eroding Coastline
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- Education
On this episode, I talk with Dr. Elsa Devienne. Dr. Devienne and I discuss the history of Los Angeles’s beaches and how environmental histories such as her book, The Sand Rush: An Environmental History of the Los Angeles’s Beaches, can help us contextualize current environmental crisis like LA’s coastal erosion.
Dr. Devienne is a lecturer in US history at Northumbria University. Her research lies at the intersection of urban history, environmental history, and the history of gender, body and sexuality, with a focus on the 20th century. She particularly engages with the history of America’s coastlines from the 19th century beach bathing boom to today’s climate crisis. Her first book The Sand Rush: An Environmental History of the Lost Angeles’s Beaches won the 2021 Willi Paul Adams Award for best book on American history published in a language other than English. The book looks at the beach modernization campaign that transformed Los Angeles into one of the world’s greatest coastal cities, showing how the city-maintained shores for seaside leisure and the triumph of modern bodies.
Many thanks to the Bilinski foundation and the Bilinski fellowship at Bodega Bay Marine Lab for providing the funding that made this series possible.
Links: Review of Sand Rush which is currently under contract for the English version with Oxford University Press http://porttowns.port.ac.uk/the-coastal-history-blog-48-the-re-invention-of-the-modern-beach/ ; The Wall by John Lanchester https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/15/the-wall-by-john-lanchester-review ; El Matador State Beach https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=633
On this episode, I talk with Dr. Elsa Devienne. Dr. Devienne and I discuss the history of Los Angeles’s beaches and how environmental histories such as her book, The Sand Rush: An Environmental History of the Los Angeles’s Beaches, can help us contextualize current environmental crisis like LA’s coastal erosion.
Dr. Devienne is a lecturer in US history at Northumbria University. Her research lies at the intersection of urban history, environmental history, and the history of gender, body and sexuality, with a focus on the 20th century. She particularly engages with the history of America’s coastlines from the 19th century beach bathing boom to today’s climate crisis. Her first book The Sand Rush: An Environmental History of the Lost Angeles’s Beaches won the 2021 Willi Paul Adams Award for best book on American history published in a language other than English. The book looks at the beach modernization campaign that transformed Los Angeles into one of the world’s greatest coastal cities, showing how the city-maintained shores for seaside leisure and the triumph of modern bodies.
Many thanks to the Bilinski foundation and the Bilinski fellowship at Bodega Bay Marine Lab for providing the funding that made this series possible.
Links: Review of Sand Rush which is currently under contract for the English version with Oxford University Press http://porttowns.port.ac.uk/the-coastal-history-blog-48-the-re-invention-of-the-modern-beach/ ; The Wall by John Lanchester https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/15/the-wall-by-john-lanchester-review ; El Matador State Beach https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=633
31 min