_{© Yves Klein, Antropometría (1962)}

Although it has been part of social and legal theory since early times, the normative status of sex is a problem that is often sidestepped. One of the apparent paradoxes it contains, which intrigues cultural studies of law, is that the greater the power offered by the invocation of sex – taken as violence, emancipation, identity, freedom, self-determination, dignity, danger, etc. – the less ability there is to isolate and justify the place that the law reserves for it, as well as the way in which it is represented.

Mobilising different disciplinary matrices and analytical sensibilities, the Winter School “Sex between legal knowledges and powers” questions the conditions of its enunciation and evidence in the exercise of jurisdiction over people and things. Focusing on the relationship between sex and law, this School is framed by the broader concern to understand why, through what devices, using what arguments and with what assumptions and implications, various extra-legal landscapes provide ideas, beliefs and references for the creation of norms, the material sources of law and the interpretative exercise in sexual matters. The main objective is to contribute to problematising the mediations of meaning between legal practises and the worlds of ethics, aesthetics, politics, and science, with a view to capturing the mechanisms of constitution of these articulations and the regimes of influence they exert on the ways of imagining, conceptualising and regulating sex and sexuality.

The guiding questions of the work programme are as follows: how do the fields of science, culture, politics, and ethics conceive and project sex/sexuality? How do their respective narratives and conceptions of sex invade the legal system and language? Moreover, conversely, how do the grammar and rationality of law reverberate in the worlds of science, art, politics, and ethics? By accepting or reformulating these questions, the Winter School seeks to explore new avenues and hypotheses about law as a cultural phenomenon and sex as a normative challenge.

The School is aimed at researchers, students, professionals and people interested in cultural studies of law and in the technologies (discursive, visual, symbolic) of normative representation of sex.

Structure and Programme*
This Winter School runs over five days, with mornings devoted to lectures and afternoons to workshops.

The programme is structured around themes: the first day is devoted to different theoretical and methodological approaches to law (law and discipline); the following days are devoted to epistemological dialogues between law and science (day 2), law and culture (day 3), law and politics (day 4) and law and ethics (day 5). The activities will be led by speakers and trainers from diverse areas and disciplinary backgrounds, with the aim of introducing participants to analytical problems, intellectual debates, and various theoretical and methodological frameworks.
 

Day 1: Law and discipline
The legal representation/imagination of sex in political sociology, historical philosophy, and hermeneutic theory of law - António Casimiro Ferreira, Jorge Silva Santos, Joana Aguiar e Silva

Workshop I: The practice of forensic linguistics and the implications of the expression of sex in language - Rui Sousa-Silva

Workshop II: Legal reasoning and sex as a criminal problem: the case of pimping - Nuno Igreja Matos

Day 2: Law and science
The legal representation/imagination of sex in the relationship between law and science - Tiago Ribeiro, Pedro Vasconcelos, Inês Godinho

Workshop III: Sex in the psychiatric dispositif - Cátia Guerra

Visit to the Museum Centre of Rovisco Pais Colony Hospital


Day 3: Law and culture
The legal representation/imagination of sex in the relationship between law and culture - Soraya Nour Sckell, António Guerreiro, Brisa Paim Duarte

Workshop IV: Sexual law and science fiction - Daniela Côrtes Maduro

Workshop V: Sexual law and theatrical dramaturgy - Mário Montenegro

Day 4: Law and politics
The legal representation/imagination of sex in the relationship between law and politics - João Pedroso, Patrícia Fernandes, Pedro Caeiro

Workshop VI: Sex as a prerogative of the subject: sexual assistance and legal regulation - Conceição Nogueira and Ana Pinho

Workshop VII: Sex in legislative construction: representativeness, process, and outcome - Vânia Álvares

Workshop VIII: Sex in political mobilisation: the place of law in collective debates and positions - Andrea Peniche

Day 5: Law and ethics
The legal representation/imagination of sex in the relationship between law and ethics - Ana Oliveira, Maria do Carmo Silva Dias, Luís Meneses do Vale, João Leal Amado

Roundtable: Sex in canon law: from theological thought to jurisdictional experience, with Eugénia Abrantes, Fernanda Henriques, Jorge Teixeira da Cunha, José Manuel Pureza, Paula Marinho, Tiago Cavaco (Session open to the public)
Venue: Seminário Maior de Coimbra.

^{* Titles are provisional and merely illustrative of the topics to be addressed.}

Training Team

Ana Oliveira (Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra)
Ana Pinho (Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Porto)
Andrea Peniche (A Coletiva)
António Casimiro Ferreira (Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra / Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra)
António Guerreiro (Público newspaper / Revista Electra / Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon)
Brisa Paim Duarte (Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra)
Cátia Guerra (Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust / Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto)
Conceição Nogueira (Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Porto)
Daniela Côrtes Maduro (Centre for Portuguese Literature of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the Ûniversity of Coimbra)
Eugénia Abrantes (Institute for Advanced Studies in Catholicism and Globalisation - IACGO)
Fernanda Henriques (Departament of Philosophy of the School of Social Sciences of the University of Évora / Philosophy and Gender Centre of the Portuguese Society of Philosophy)
Inês Godinho (Faculty of Law and Political Science of Lusófona University)
Joana Aguiar e Silva (School of Law of the University of Minho)
João Leal Amado (Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra)
João Pedroso (Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra / Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra)
Jorge Silva Santos (Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon / CIDPCC – Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Sciences)
Jorge Teixeira da Cunha (Faculty of Theology of the Portuguese Catholic University)
José Manuel Pureza (Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra / Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra)
Luís Meneses do Vale (Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon / University of Coimbra Institute for Legal Research - UCILeR)
Maria do Carmo Silva Dias (Supreme Court of Justice)
Mário Montenegro (Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of the University of Coimbra – CEIS20)
Nuno Igreja Matos (Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon)
Patrícia Fernandes (Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society of the University of Minho)
Paula Marinho (Marinho Law Firm)
Pedro Caeiro (Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra)
Pedro Vasconcelos (ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa)
Rui Sousa-Silva (Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto)
Soraya Nour Sckell (Research & Development Centre on Law and Society – CEDIS / NOVA School Of Law)
Tiago Cavaco (Second Baptist Evangelical Church of Lisbon – Igreja da Lapa)
Tiago Ribeiro (Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra / School of Education and Social Sciences of the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria)
Vânia Álvares (Superior Council of the Public Prosecutor's Office / School of Social Sciences and Humanities, NOVA University of Lisbon  - NOVA FCSH)

Registration fees

- Until 30 December 2025
General registration: €80
Registration for students and unemployed persons: €50

- Between 31 December 2025 and 28 January 2026
General registration: €100
Registration for students and unemployed persons: €70

_{* The School offers three free places to the CES community.}

_{** Registration for the Winter School includes transport and a guided visit to the Museum Centre of the Rovisco Pais Colony Hospital, a guided visit to the Major Seminary of Coimbra, lunches and coffee breaks, support materials, and a certificate of participation}.

_{Refund policy: The registration fee will be refunded in full upon notification by 16 January 2026.}

Maximum number of participants: 25