Dr. Lieks Hettinga is an Assistant Professor in Gender and Sexuality at Leiden University. They obtained their double-degree PhD in Gender Studies (2021) at Utrecht University (the Netherlands) and Central European University (Hungary/Austria). Their research is situated at intersections of transgender studies, disability studies, critical race theory, and visual culture.

More information about Lieks Hettinga

Lieks Hettinga’s research examines ways in which artists and activists visualize, represent and/or enact non-normative embodiment, more specifically looking at the intersection of trans and disability visual politics and poetics of the body. Their research interests include trans-crip affinities in critiques of (neo)liberalism and debates about how race and disability underpin and/or trouble contemporary Western consolidations of ‘transgender’ as an identity category. They are currently preparing a monograph based on their PhD dissertation, tentatively titled Appearing Differently: Trans-Crip Aesthetics of Refusal. 

Research interests include:
 - transgender healthcare
 - minoritarian aesthetics
 - cultural representations of illness and debility
 - bio- and necropolitics
 - postcolonial and decolonial theory
 - critical pedagogy