Emmanuel Destenay received his PhD in Contemporary History from Sorbonne University in 2014. His doctoral research was funded by the Institute for Strategic Research of the French Ministry of Defense and examined the experiences of demobilization of Irish veterans of the First World War. His thesis received the 2015 PhD Prize from the Irish Foundation of France. He held Research Fellowships at Oxford University (2011-2012), Stanford University (2015), and University College Dublin (2016-2019).
As part of the Irish Research Council (IRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship, he organized an international conference on Post-War Transitions in Europe: Politics, States and Veterans (1918-1939) at University College Dublin. It received funding from the Irish Research Council and the Embassy for France in Ireland. He also organized an international conference on Ireland, the First World War and the Irish Revolution. Continuities, Ruptures and Legacies at the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris. It received financial support from the Embassy from Ireland in Paris.
He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and a fully-qualified teacher in English, French and History. He has received several awards from professional achievements (2015, 2016) and a Students' Teaching Award (2015) from Exeter University.
He has written several articles in international refereed journals. His most recent articles appeared in the Journal for British Studies, Modern American History and Rural History. Economy, Society, Culture.
His first monograph entitled Shadows from the Trenches. Veterans of the Great War and the Irish Revolution (1918-1923) was published by University College Dublin Press (2021). Thanks to this first single-authored book, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) in 2021 and rewarded with a Honorable mention (James S. Donnelly, Sr., Prize for Books in Humanities and Social Sciences) at the annual American Conference for Irish Studies in 2022. His second monograph Divergent Destinies. Conscription, US Intervention and the Transformation of Ireland (1914-1918) appeared in 2022 with Bloomsbury Academic.
His third monograph America's French Orphans: Mobilization, Humanitarniansim, and the Protection of France, 1914-1921 tracks the mobilization of American men, women, and children in adopting and rescuing French orphans during and in the aftermath of World War One. It was published by Cambridge University Press in 2024.
He has now embarked on two new projects.
