This seminar series aims to draw on the contribution of cultural studies of law to the problematisation of the legal representation of sex. The title echoes a classic sociological tension – between law in books and law in action – but addresses a different concern: to reflect on different ways of observing in books manifestations of law in action that help us rethink it as a source of elucidation and ambiguity, as a place of intellectual comfort and disquietude.

The choice of the formulation “law and…” is not accidental: it seeks inspiration from a contemporary movement that renews approaches to law by articulating it with themes and phenomena with which, at first sight, it would have only a contingent or incidental relationship. Between what is and how it is made, sex will be the lens through which participants are challenged to find in a book – the unit of reference and guiding thread of the sessions – the testimony of law that hides itself or reveals itself in a story, an essay, or in “something in between”. 

Observing the effect of this liminality of literary genres – from political narrative to science fiction – on the ways of enunciating people and things, this cycle proposes to explore different manifestations of sex as an experience simultaneously situated and detached from time and space.

The “Law and Books” series is organised by Ana Oliveira and Tiago Ribeiro, and takes place within the scope of the LAWCUS project – reference 2023.12608.PEX, funded by national funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.54499/2023.12608.PEX