My areas of specialization are European philosophy, the history of philosophy, feminist philosophy, philosophy and literature, the philosophy of sex and gender, and social and political philosophy. I am also interested in ethics and anti-racist philosophy.

I recently completed an edited volume with Nidesh Lawtoo which created an interdisciplinary dialogue between mimetic studies and philosophies of plasticity. It is the third volume of a three volume series called Homo Mimeticus and is available open-access here: https://lup.be/book/homo-mimeticus-iii/ An interview about the book and editorial process can be found here: https://lup.be/2025/12/nidesh-lawtoo-and-willow-verkerk-homo-mimeticus-iii/

This book was connected to the Gendered Mimesis project at KU Leuven (http://www.homomimeticus.eu/gendered-mimesis-c1/) for which I was a postdoctoral researcher (2021-2024). The Gendered Mimesis Project reframed dominant accounts of the subject of Enlightenment with the emerging and relational accounts of subjectivity offered by Adriana Cavarero (inclination), Judith Butler (performativity), and Catherine Malabou (plasticity). By drawing on a Nietzschean legacy in critical theory, this research was concerned with creating a dialogue between Nietzsche, 20th century French philosophy, and contemporary continental feminist thinkers. These days I continue to be involved in Nietzsche scholarship, but my research interests are more focused on existentialism, psychoanalysis, and philosophy and literature.

Book

Nietzsche and Friendship. London: Bloomsbury, February 2019 (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/nietzsche-and-friendship-9781350047341/)

Articles

“Is Friendship Possible with the Dead? On Love and Solidarity with Bataille and Nietzsche.” AMITY: The Journal of Friendship Studies (2024) 8:1, 27-38. https://doi.org/10.5518/AMITY/39

“A Re-evaluation of the Androcentric Subject of European Philosophy,” Critical Horizons 24.2 (2023): pp. 115-130. https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2023.2233109

“A Feminist Genealogy of the Post-Enlightenment Subject,” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 42. 1 (2021): pp. 27-51. https://doi.org/10.5840/gfpj20214212

“On Love, Women, and Friendship: Reading Nietzsche with Irigaray,” Nietzsche-Studien 46.1 (2017): pp. 135–152. https://doi.org/10.1515/nietzstu-2017-0110.

“Transgendering Nietzsche: Male Mothers and Phallic Women in Derrida’s Spurs.” philoSOPHIA: A Journal of Continental Feminism 7.1 (Winter 2017): 99-108. https://doi.org/10.1353/phi.2017.0007.

“Nietzsche’s Joyful Friendship: Epicurean Elements in the Middle Works,” The Agonist Vol. X (Spring 2017): pp. 25-40.

“Nietzsche’s Agonistic Ethics of Friendship.” Symposium: Canadian Journal for Continental Philosophy 20.2 (Fall 2016): 22-41. https://doi.org/10.5840/symposium201620216.

“Nietzsche’s Goal of Friendship.” Journal of Nietzsche Studies 45.3 (Autumn 2014): 279-291. https://doi.org/10.5325/jnietstud.45.3.0279.

“Nietzsche on Love,” Philosophy Now 104 (September/October 2014): 14-16.

“Heroism in Sophocles’s Antigone.” Philosophy and Literature 38.1 (April 2014): 282-291. https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.2014.0004.

Book Chapters

“Friedrich Nietzsche” in Rethinking Political Thinkers, ed. Simon Choat and Manjeet Ramgotra, pp. 239-255. Oxford University Press, 2023.

“Reification, Objectification, and Feminist Activism” in The Spell of Capital: Reification and Spectacle, ed. Samir Gandesha and Johan Frederik Hartle, pp. 149-162. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017.

“Nietzsche’s Cruel Offerings: Friendship, Solitude, and the Bestowing Virtue in Thus Spoke Zarathustra” in Nietzsche’s Therapeutic Teaching: For Individuals and Culture, ed. Horst Hutter and Eli Friedland, pp. 61-72. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.

Edited Collections

Homo Mimeticus III: The Metamorphoses of Mimesis with Catherine Malabou, ed. Nidesh Lawtoo and Willow Verkerk. Leuven University Press, 2025.

“Mimetic Inclinations with Adriana Cavarero,” ed. Nidesh Lawtoo and Willow Verkerk, special issue Critical Horizons 24.2 (2023).

Encyclopaedia Entry

“Objectification,” in Encyclopedia of Critical Political Science, ed. Clyde W. Barrow. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024.

Translation

Tarnai Csillag, trans. “Eldologiasodás, szexuális tárgyiasítás és feminista aktivizmus,” [Reification, Objectification and Feminist Activism] in Inclinations: Contemporary Women’s Philosophy, ed. Anikó Radvánszky and Andrea Timár, Helikon Review of Literature and Culture (2023).

Review

“Fall of philosophicus erectus,” Review of Inclinations, by Adriana Cavarero. Radical Philosophy 2.02 (June 2018): 108-110. https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/reviews/individual-reviews/fall-of-philosophicus-erectus

“Reinventing Nietzsche Today: Reception and Transmission In and Beyond the Anglosphere.” Invited speaker at Nietzsche’s Zukünfte Global Conference on the Futures of Nietzsche, Kolleg Friedrich Nietzsche Klassik Stifung Weimar, Germany (October 7, 2024).

“Nietzsche’s Sovereign Individual: A Subject of Disciplinary Mimesis,” New Perspectives on Nietzsche’s Concept of Sovereignty Symposium, Canadian Philosophical Association Conference (June 18, 2024).

“Nietzsche’s Eternal Return and Its Existential Promise.” Invited special lecture, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan (June 27, 2023).

“Gendered Mimesis and the Problem of Repetition with Nietzsche and Malabou.” Metamorphosis of Mimesis Conference: Plasticity, Subjectivity and Transformation with Catherine Malabou, Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven (February 23, 2023).

“Thinking for ‘oneself’? Nietzsche and the Genealogy of the Sovereign Individual.” Invited speaker at Nietzsche and the Genealogies of the ‘New Moralism’ conference, Kolleg Friedrich Nietzsche-Klassik Stifung Weimar, Germany (October 28-29, 2022).

“Gendered Mimesis and the Episteme of Sex.” Invited speaker at Centre for Political Theory, Humboldt University Berlin (June 14, 2022). Same paper presented at KU Leuven workshop, Rethinking Gender Through Mimesis: Performativity, Narrative, Queering (June 3, 2022).

“Nietzsche and the Philosophical Value of Friendship.” Invited speaker at Practices of Friendship conference, Historisches Kolleg, Munich (June 1-2, 2022).

‘The Mimetic Relation Between Heteronormative and Repronormative Notions of Sex and Gender,’ The Mimetic Turn: Final International Conference on Homo Mimeticus (ERC), Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven (April 22, 2022).

“On How to Rethink the Androcentric Subject of European Philosophy with Inclination, Mimesis, and Love.”  Mimetic Inclinations: Gender, Philosophy, and Politics with Adriana Cavarero Conference. Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven (November 19, 2021).

“Mimetic Inclination and the Limits of the Enlightened Subject.” Invited speaker at the School of Materialist Research (September 28, 2021).

“Gendered Mimesis: An introduction.” HOM Seminar, KU Leuven (June 24, 2021).

“On Sovereignty and the Universal: Rethinking the Dialectic in Enlightenment with Juliette.” Invited speaker at Theodor W. Adorno: Fifty Years After His Death, SFU Woodward”s (November 29, 2019).

“A community for those without? Love, death and solidarity in Bataille, Nietzsche and Derrida.” Invited speaker at the Philosophy Association, University of Fraser Valley (Nov 8, 2019).

“The Mimetic Subject: Identity, Gender, and Trauma in Continental Feminist Philosophy.” Invited speaker for research seminar, Department of Theology, Religion and Philosophy, the University of Winchester (February 12, 2019).

“Nietzsche and His Posthumous Friends.” PICT Faculty Lectures III, Goethe Institute Paris (January 31, 2019).

“Transmitting the Legacies of Philosophical Thought.” Critical Thought in and Beyond the University, Paris School of Arts and Culture, University of Kent, Paris (January 28, 2019).

“Philosophical Honesty and the Practice of Changing Values: Thinking with James Baldwin.” Invited speaker at The Price of the Ticket with 198 Arts and Learning. Tate Modern, London (May 20, 2018).

“On the Reception and Transmission of Philosophical Legacies.” Invited speaker at Symposium: A New Ethics. The evolving responsibilities of creative practices in a changing world. Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston, UK (January 20, 2018).

“Aristotle and Nietzsche on Greatness of Soul.” Invited speaker at international workshop, Subject, Character, Habit, University of Cologne (November 16, 2017).

“The Body as Force in Performance Art.” Invited speaker for master class at performing arts school Forum Dança, Faculty of Fine Arts Lisbon (November 9, 2017).

“The Sovereign Individual in Nietzsche and Sade.” Invited speaker for departmental seminar at Royal Holloway, University of London, Philosophy Department (October 18, 2017).

“On Sovereignty and Female Power: Juliette and Antigone as Dissonant Exemplars.” Society for European Philosophy and Forum for European Philosophy Joint Annual Conference (SEP-FEP 2017), University of Winchester (September 5, 2017).

“Reinterpreting Philosophy: Questioning Universality with Exemplarity and Difference.” Invited keynote speaker at Feminist Utopias: Transforming the Present of Philosophy, Historical and Contemporary Perspectives Conference, University of Iceland (March 30- April 2, 2017).

“Friendship, Love and Women.” Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy 2016/17 Research Series, Chelsea Lecture Theatre, University of the Arts London (March 9, 2017). Listen: https://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2017/03/willow-verkerk-friendship-love-and-women/

“On Communication: Bataille’s Friendship with Nietzsche.” Invited speaker for workshop on Bataille’s Nietzsche, Centre for Philosophy and Critical Thought, Goldsmiths, University of London (November 11, 2016).