*Willemijn is on sabbatical from February-August 2024; from 1 Feb.-15 May 2024 she is a visiting fellow of the Remarque Institute at New York University.*

Willemijn Ruberg is associate professor in Cultural History (with ius promovendi). Her research interests include the modern history of gender, sexuality, emotions, law, knowledge, forensic expertise and the body, as well as cultural theory. She published History of the Body (2020) in the History and Theory series of Palgrave Macmillan/Red Globe Press.

Leading a team of three PhD candidates and one Postdoc, she is the principal investigator of the research project Forensic Culture. A Comparative Analysis of Forensic Practices in Europe, 1930-2000 (FORCe), funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant (2018-2024). It starts from the idea that cultural ideas and practices have been major determinants in the position of science in the courtroom. To expose the power of culture, the project compares forensic practices in four European countries (the Netherlands, England, Spain and Russia) with differing legal systems and ideologies. As part of this research project, in 2023 the edited volume Forensic Cultures in Modern Europe (edited by Willemijn Ruberg, Lara Bergers, Pauline Dirven and Sara Serrano Martínez) was published by Manchester University Press.

Together with Elwin Hofman, Willemijn recently founded the Research Network for Culture, Law and the Body.

PhD supervision

David van Oeveren (promotor, daily supervisors: dr Gertjan Plets and dr Pieter Huistra)

Anna van der Weij, 'Dying on the edge. Burial practices in the Lower German limes area' (daily supervisor: dr Saskia Stevens)

Pauline Dirven, 'Embodied Performances of Forensic Expertise: Epistemic Virtues, Emotions, and Gender in British Forensic Culture 1920-1980' (promotor and daily supervisor, co-promotor dr Jochen Hung)

Lara Bergers (promotor and daily supervisor, co-promotor dr Fenneke Sysling)

Nathanje Dijkstra, 'Making Up Incapacity for Work? How Government Officials, Medical Experts and Disabled Workers Brought Incapacity for Work into Being in the First Dutch Social Security Law (1901-1967)’ (defended 12 January 2024) (promotor, second promotor: prof. Berteke Waaldijk)

Sara Serrano Martínez, ‘The Infanticide Article Under Franco, 1937-1963: ‘Leniency’, Judicial Discretion and Forensic Knowledge’ (defended 3 Nov. 2023) (promotor, second promotor: prof. Annette Mülberger)

Laura Nys, ‘Mixed feelings. Emotion, gender and discipline in ego-documents of youth offenders (1890-1965)' (member of doctoral supervisory committee; supervisors: Prof. Dr. Gita Deneckere (UGent) & Prof. Dr. Jenneke Christiaens (VUB), Ghent University (defended 2019)