Ombline Damy

Graduate of the University of Oxford and Sorbonne Nouvelle, and a former secondary school teacher in French, Ombline Damy is currently a PhD candidate in comparative literature at the Centre for History at Sciences Po.

Academic Background

• Since September 2024: PhD candidate, Centre for History, Sciences Po
• 2023–2024: Master’s (M2) in European and non-European Literatures, Sorbonne Nouvelle
• 2021–2023: Secondary school teacher in French with the association Le choix de l’école
• 2020–2021: Master of Studies in Modern Languages (Comparative Literature, French and German), University of Oxford — Distinction
• 2016–2020: Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Modern Languages (German), University of Oxford

My doctoral research lies at the intersection of comparative literature, memory studies, and the history of childhood and children. It examines the role attributed to children in the construction of collective memories in the 20th and 21st centuries, both as literary figures and as social actors. 
More specifically, I am conducting a comparative study of how racial persecution in the United States, residential schools in Canada and the Nazi regime in Germany have been memorialized through child characters in literary texts. My corpus brings together works by authors Harper Lee, Richard Wagamese, and Siegfried Lenz. They depict and memorialize forms of violence and persecution from a child’s perspective in globally renowned works frequently taught in schools.

Frédérique Leichter-Flack (dir.)

The Child as Memory-Figure from 1945 to the Present (Canada, United States, Germany)

• Elective course taught in Nancy (in German):
  “The Joys of Duty”: Narratives of childhood in Nazi Germany
  („Die Freuden der Pflicht“: Erzählungen der Kindheit in der Nazizeit)
• Seminars in General and Comparative Literature (taught in French at Sorbonne Nouvelle):
  - “Understanding Otherwise”: Writing from the Child’s Point of View in the 20th Century
  - Ghosts and Revenants: Post-positivist Approaches (with Guido Furci)

• Hertford College Prize (Oxford) for “outstanding academic results” in the Master’s degree
• Knox Prize (St Hilda’s College, Oxford) for German-language literature
• Scholarship awarded for “outstanding results” in the first year of undergraduate study (Oxford)

Recent Publications

• Ombline Damy, « L’anachronisme comme stratégie de survie pour l’enfant rescapé de la Shoah dans l’œuvre d’Aharon Appelfeld (1932-2018) », Fabula /Les colloques, Anachronismes et violences : perspectives transdisiplinaires (dir. Frédérique Leichter-Flack, Aline Lebel, Cécile Rousselet). [“Anachronism as a Survival Strategy for the Child Survivor of the Holocaust in the Works of Aharon Appelfeld (1932–2018),” Fabula / Les colloques, Anachronisms and Violence: Transdisciplinary Perspectives, my translation]
• Ombline Damy, « Camille Mahé, La seconde guerre mondiale des enfants. Allemagne, France, Italie (1943)1949) » [Camille Mahé, Children’s World War II: Germany, France, Italy (1943–1949), my translation ], ” Histoire Politique [online], Reviews section, published May 12, 2025.
• https://theconversation.com/how-a-postwar-german-literary-classic-helped-eclipse-painter-emil-noldes-relationship-to-nazism-258310 /
• https://theconversation.com/emil-nolde-lartiste-degenere-qui-admirait-le-regime-nazi-254648
• https://www.lintermede.com/figures-du-fou-musee-du-louvre.php
• https://www.lintermede.com/save-one-life-save-the-world.php

Recent Presentations

• “L’enfant comme personnage mémoire après 1945 [The Child as a Memory-Figure after 1945”, my translation] Sciences Po doctoral seminar (InDocSem), December 2025
• “Face à la violence de l’histoire, prendre refuge dans l’enfance. Usages et effets de l’anachronisme dans Des jours d’une stupéfiante clarté (2014) et Le garçon qui voulait dormir (2009) d’Aharon Appelfeld. » [“Facing Historical Violence: Taking Refuge in Childhood. Uses and Effects of Anachronism in The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping (2009) and Blooms of Darkness (2014) by Aharon Appelfeld”, my translation]
  Workshop “Anachronisms and violence”, Sciences Po Paris, May 2025.
• “Une enfance interdite”: Coming of Age as a Jewish Child during the Holocaust. Ruth Klüger’s weiter leben. Eine Jugend (1994) and Evelyne Krief, Une enfance interdite ou la petite marrane (1997),” Annual Conference in French Studies, Bristol, UK, July 2025
• “Tick Tock: The Clock Motif in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981),” inter-university exchange between Sorbonne Nouvelle and Goethe University Frankfurt, online, July 2025

Organization of Academic Events

• Co-organization of the conference: Prendre le politique au mot. Appropriations, réécritures et détournements stratégiques de la littérature contemporaine. ’[Taking the Political at Its Word: Appropriations, Rewritings, and Strategic Reuses of Contemporary Literature, my translation], December 4–5, 2025, Sciences Po Paris
• Co-organization of the interdisciplinary junior conference (history, literature, sociology): Quand la filiation ne va pas de soi. Filiations et violences, XXème et XXIème siècles. “When Filiation Is Not Self-Evident: Filiation and Violence in the 20th and 21st Centuries,” Centre for History, Sciences Po Paris (date to be confirmed, likely early November 2026)
• Organization of workshops for doctoral students of the French Society for General and Comparative Literature (SFLGC):
  https://ateliersflgc.hypotheses.org/