Email: elsa.genard@gmail.com

Elsa Génard is a historian of modern France whose work focuses on the history of punishment. She is currently a Prize Fellow in Economics, History, and Politics at Harvard University.

Elsa’s research lies at the crossroads between social history, legal history, and the history of the state, with an emphasis on prison. Her current book project develops a social history of interactions in French prisons from the 1910s until the 1930s. From admission to release, from prison courtroom to visiting room, her book follows the paths of incarcerated men and women, as they are subjected to different patterns of imprisonment. Studying how WWI and the subsequent economic and social evolutions affected prison life shows that carceral interactions tapped into the entire repertoire of interpersonal relationships of that period. Elsa is also co-editing (with Mathilde Rossigneux-Méheust) a collective book about the comparative history of punishment in closed institutions in modern Europe (under contract with CNRS Editions). 

Her current research explores how economic and disciplinary relations are intertwined in the places of punishment. Works in progress include a piece on how the relationships in prison during the 1920s and 1930s were affected by the monetary turmoil and the economic crisis. 

Elsa’s interests also include the history of statistics, quantitative methods, and methodology in social history. She currently reflects on the tools provided by interactionist sociology for renewing in depth our understanding of the relations between the state, institutions, and individuals.

Elsa received her Ph.D. in history from Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in 2021. Her Ph.D. thesis was awarded the 2022 Louis Joinet Prize. She obtained her BA at Sorbonne Université and her MA in History at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. She also studied at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris.