_{© 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 expression of sex in language - Rui Sousa-Silva

Workshop II: Legal reasoning and sex as a criminal problem - 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 as a psychiatric category - Cátia Guerra

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 performance art - Mário Montenegro

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

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 craftsmanship: the effect of process on 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 (Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra)
Ana Pinho (Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto)
Andrea Peniche (A Coletiva)
António Casimiro Ferreira (Faculdade de Economia da Universidade de Coimbra / Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra)
António Guerreiro (Jornal Público / Revista Electra / Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa)
Brisa Paim Duarte (Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Coimbra)
Cátia Guerra (Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust / Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto)
Conceição Nogueira (Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto)
Daniela Côrtes Maduro (Centro de Literatura Portuguesa da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra)
Eugénia Abrantes (Instituto de Estudos Avançados em Catolicismo e Globalização)
Fernanda Henriques (Departamento de Filosofia da Escola de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Évora / Centro Filosofia e Género da Sociedade Portuguesa de Filosofia)
Inês Godinho (Faculdade de Direito e Ciência Política da Universidade Lusófona)
Joana Aguiar e Silva (Escola de Direito da Universidade do Minho)
João Leal Amado (Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Coimbra)
João Pedroso (Faculdade de Economia da Universidade de Coimbra / Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra)
Jorge Silva Santos (Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Lisboa)
Jorge Teixeira da Cunha (Faculdade de Teologia da Universidade Católica Portuguesa)
José Manuel Pureza (Faculdade de Economia da Universidade de Coimbra / Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra)
Luís Meneses do Vale (Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Coimbra)
Maria do Carmo Silva Dias (Supremo Tribunal de Justiça)
Mário Montenegro (Centro de Estudos Interdisciplinares da Universidade de Coimbra – CEIS20)
Nuno Igreja Matos (Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Lisboa)
Patrícia Fernandes (Centro de Ética, Política e Sociedade da Universidade do Minho)
Paula Marinho (Marinho Advogados)
Pedro Caeiro (Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Coimbra)
Pedro Vasconcelos (ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa)
Rui Sousa-Silva (Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto)
Soraya Nour Sckell (Centro de Investigação & Desenvolvimento sobre Direito e Sociedade – CEDIS / Faculdade de Direito da Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
Tiago Cavaco (Igreja Evangélica Baptista da Lapa)
Tiago Ribeiro (Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra / Escola Superior de Educação e Ciências Sociais do Instituto Politécnico de Leiria)
Vânia Álvares (Conselho Superior do Ministério Público / Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa)

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.

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

Maximum number of participants: 25