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Willemijn Ruberg is professor Cultural History of the Body and Head of the Cultural History group. 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 (2020) in the History and Theory series of Palgrave MacMillan/Red Globe Press. Currently she is working on a book discussing the cultural history of the right to bodily integrity in modern Europe. 

Forthcoming publications:

-Jochen Hung and Willemijn Ruberg (ed.), London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2026)

-together with and Willemijn is editing the Oxford Handbook of the History of the Modern Body (2027).

Between 2018 and 2024 Willemijn led a team of three PhD candidates and one Postdoc, as the principal investigator of the research project , funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant. As part of this research project, in 2023 the edited volume (edited by Willemijn Ruberg, Lara Bergers, Pauline Dirven and Sara Serrano Martínez) was published by Manchester ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ Press.

Together with Elwin Hofman, Willemijn recently founded the .

PhD supervision

Jade de Lannoy, ‘Knowledge on trial: the interaction between lay knowledge and expert knowledge on body and mind in court cases on sexual violence. Belgium and the Netherlands, 1920-1960’ (promotores: prof. Kaat Wils, KU Leuven and prof. Willemijn Ruberg; funded by FWO, started 2025)

Tijmen van Voorthuizen, ‘History and Heritage of Queer Bars in the Low Countries’ (promotor; daily supervisor: dr. Elwin Hofman; funded by NWO; started 2024)

David van Oeveren, ‘Evolving imagination of the Roman borderlands in the Netherlands, 1815-1945’ (promotor, daily supervisors: dr. Gertjan Plets and dr. Pieter Huistra; funded by NWO)

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

Pauline Dirven, 'Embodied Performances of Forensic Expertise: Epistemic Virtues, Emotions, and Gender in British Forensic Culture 1920-1980' (defence: 6 September 2024)(promotor and daily supervisor, co-promotor dr. Jochen Hung; funded by ERC) Pauline's thesis won the 2025 .

Lara Bergers, ‘Investigating Sexual Crime in the Netherlands, 1930-1980: Understanding Victims and Perpetrators’, (promotor and daily supervisor, co-promotor dr. Fenneke Sysling; funded by ERC)

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; funded by NWO)

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; funded by ERC)

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 ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ (defended 2019)