Call for Papers

The governance of sexual order and meaning is a theme with a long tradition in social and legal theory, revealing the power of sexual invocation – as violence, emancipation, freedom, self-determination, dignity, danger, etc. – as a way of claiming, justifying or contesting the role of law across different domains of social life.

The international colloquium “Sex Laws: f(r)ames and f(r)ictions in cultural legal studies” has a threefold purpose: to intensify sociological reflection on the legal status of sex by revisiting problems and debates that accompany the preservation and/or transformation of its place within normative and argumentative landscapes; to contribute to the opening and organisation of the archive of resources (ethical, scientific, symbolic, etc.) through which legal practices invest meaning in and represent what they call sex; and to explore how different modes of creative and fictional expression (literary, cinematic, musical) document sexual forms and ideas shaped by legal reason. As a forum for discussion that brings together diverse disciplinary sensibilities, the colloquium seeks to expand the analytical potential of sex as testimony to an equation between will and fate, and to promote, within the Portuguese academic field, a meeting point between cultural studies and the sociology of law.

The colloquium programme includes the presentation of research paths developed within the project LAWCUS, two plenary sessions – with Elena Loizidou (School of Law, Birkbeck, University of London) and Ian Ward (Newcastle Law School) –, discussion panels, and parallel sessions open to the submission of proposals.

Building on the sharing of different – and at times unexpected – manifestations of sex in law, the horizon of this event is to outline new hypotheses about law as a cultural phenomenon and sex as a normative challenge. With this aim, the colloquium invites the submission of theoretical, empirical or comparative contributions from different disciplines addressing, among others, the following topics:

• Social and cultural history of the legal representation of sex;
• Sex as an object of social and political mobilisation;
• Sex as an object of public policy;
• Sexual conception and imagination of the subject;
• Polarizations in contemporary legal-sexual thought;
• Articulation between law and ethics, aesthetics, politics, and science;
• Constellation of norms, doctrine and/or case law (constitutional, civil, criminal, labour, organisational, etc.) that make up the ‘sex laws’;
• Evidence, interpretation, and decision-making in sexual matters;
• Cultural studies and research methods on sex as a legal object.

Paper proposals for the parallel sessions may be submitted in Portuguese or English and must include the title of the presentation, an abstract of up to 2,500 characters (including spaces), and three keywords. The deadline for submission is 17 April 2026, via the following form

Organising Committee | Ana Oliveira (CES), António Casimiro Ferreira (CES/FEUC), Madalena Duarte (CES/FEUC), Tiago Ribeiro (CES/ESECS-IPL)

Registration | Free but mandatory.

Important dates:

• Proposal submission: 16 January – 17 April 2026
• Acceptance notification: by 8 May 2026
• Registration closes: 15 June 2026

The colloquium “Sex Laws: f(r)ames and f(r)ictions in cultural legal studies” is organised within the framework of the project LAWCUS – reference 2023.12608.PEX, funded by national funds through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (DOI: https://doi.org/10.54499/2023.12608.PEX) – and the DemoJUST Thematic Line – Democracy, justice and human rights of the Centre for Social Studies.