Rate My Professor Brice Evain

Brice Evain is a Maître de conférences en histoire moderne at Université de Caen Normandie, affiliated with the HisTeMé laboratory (UR 7455) in the UFR Humanités et sciences sociales. He serves as the course leader for the Master's degree in History, specifically the parcours Histoire, cultures et sciences politiques, and holds responsibility for the Licence 2 program in History. Evain is an agrégé d'histoire and earned his doctorate from Université Rennes 2 in December 2021 with a thesis entitled Dire et écrire la révolte en France et en Angleterre (1540-1640), supervised by Gauthier Aubert. The thesis explores the discourses, narratives, rhetoric, and sounds associated with popular uprisings in early modern France and England, analyzing seditious speeches, justifications for rebellion, and the political cultures they reveal.

Evain's academic interests center on popular revolts, peasant movements, and political practices in the early modern period, including the Nu-Pieds revolt in Normandy (1639), the Croquants (1636), the Pitauds (1548), and comparative perspectives with England. His publications include "Raconter la révolte : l'exemple des Nu-Pieds de Normandie (XVII^e-XVIII^e siècles)" in Dix-septième siècle (2017), "“Émotion populaire” : la révolte des va-nu-pieds à Caen (1639)" in Annales de Normandie (2025, vol. 75, no. 1), "Le pouvoir des Croquants (1636)" and "Villages en politique" in Parlements (2025, no. 2), and "La révolte des Pitauds de 1548 : une résistance à l'État monarchique ?" (2023). He co-organizes the interdisciplinary seminar "La fabrique du politique" with colleagues including Vincent Bollenot, Dzovinar Kevonian, and Anne de Mathan, and participates in seminars on rural societies, environments, and spaces, as well as colloquia related to agrégation d'histoire topics such as inhabiting French countryside (1634-1970s). Evain has contributed to public outreach through podcasts like France Culture's "Le cours de l'histoire" on the Nu-Pieds revolt and Radio TouCaen discussions on popular emotions.