Leni Van Goidsenhoven is an Assistant Professor of Critical Disability Studies at Literary and Cultural Analysis.
Her research focuses on disability, illness, neurodiversity, inclusive learning environments, and representations of non­-normative bodyminds in arts and literature.  She specialises in reconceptualizing ‘voice’, the importance of integrating lived experiences in research, and accessibility aesthetics. She mostly engages with crip theory, Mad and Disability Studies, (speculative) care ethics, and Cultural Studies.

She currently works on the concept of neurodiversity in the arts, crip technoscience, disability heritage and accessibility aesthetics. With Slava Greenberg and Wigbertson Julian Isenia, Leni collaborates on a project called 'Addressing Access Fatigue: Archival Practices through a Critical Disability Lens'. She also collaborates with the arts collective Shy*Play (Aion Arribas and antje nestel) on doing neurodiversity not as a process of explanation, but as a relational practice in difference.

Leni teaches, among others, Cripping Aesthetics: Critical Disability Studies, Artistic Representations and Practices (MA, rMA), Bodies in Public (BA), Concepts for Reading Contemporary Cultures (BA), What's Going On: Emerging Trends in Cultural Analysis (BA), Concepts for Cultural Analysis (rMA).

Previously, Leni was a guest curator for the City theatre NtGent  (2022-203) where she curated a program on disability. She worked closely with artists like Sonja Jokiniemi, Iris Bouche, and Karel Verhoeven on several projects and residencies. She co-founded both the Autism Ethics Network (Funded by FWO) and the Neurodivergent Humanities Network  (funded by NNMHR).  As a postdoctoral researcher, she was affiliated with the Philosophy Department of the University of Antwerp (Belgium), where she was involved in Kristien Hens’ interdisciplinary ERC project NeuroEpigenEthics. She wrote her PhD on autism and self-representation (FWO) at the Cultural Studies Department of KU Leuven (Belgium, sup. Anneleen Masschelein). She was involved in teaching Literary Studies, Bio-Ethics, Cultural Studies, and Illness and Disability narratives.  She also worked as a curator for Museum dr. Guislain and with Jan Hoet.
In 2021 her exhibition OnGehoord, scientific work and book on voice (OnGehoord) were awarded the Annual Award for Scientific Communication from the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and Arts

Leni published in international journals such as Frontiers of Psychiatry, Choreographic Practices, Life Writing, Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies, Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research and Qualitative Inquiry. She is the author of the book Autisme in veelvoud (Garant, 2020) and OnGehoord (Epo, 2021), and the ‘What Are You Reading’ editor for DiGeSt - Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies.