XVI Lisbon Summer School for the Study of Culture

in association with

Porto Summer School on Art & Cinema

Disobedience: noun. refusal or neglect to obey

Disobedience has long served as a central force behind cultural, political, and artistic transformation. Acts of defiance, refusal, and dissent – ranging from Gandhi’s civil disobedience to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, the 1989 confrontations in Tiananmen Square, the Arab Spring, transnational antiprecarity movements or the Gilets Jaunes in France, and recent Pro-Palestinian demonstrations on university campuses worldwide – render agency visible and open possibilities for reshaping life and reconfiguring systems of power. In such instances, disobedience is not just a predominately nonviolent tool to destabilize and challenge authority; it is an exercise of freedom and a form of critique – the “art of not being governed like that” (Foucault 2007, 45) –, a moral and a civil duty in the face of injustice and illegitimacy, and the embodiment of what Thoreau (1849) called the fundamental “right of revolution”.

Hannah Arendt conceptualizes disobedience primarily as a collective phenomenon that emerges “when a significant number of citizens have become convinced either that the normal channels of change no longer function, and grievances will not be heard or acted upon, or that, on the contrary, the government is about to change and has embarked upon and persists in modes of action whose legality and constitutionality are open to grave doubts” (1972, 74). Yet, disobedience takes many shapes and forms: it can be collective or individual, local or transnational, and vary from radical to subtle depending on context and motivations. It may occur through embodied, non-verbal action – e.g., sit-ins, die-ins, occupations, road blockades, lock-ons, encampments – that give rise to “spaces of appearance”, as theorized by Butler (2015) as well as Mirzoeff (2017), drawing on Arendt. It can also refer to quieter practices such as hunger strikes, tree-sitting, whistleblowing, grassroots activism, cultural and creative dissent, and everyday resistance (de Certeau 1980). More covert strategies are often employed by subordinated groups who cannot risk open criticism and refusal. Foot dragging, desertion, false compliance, and feigned ignorance are but a few examples of what James C. Scott (1985) identified as the “weapons of the weak”.

Dissent and disobedience become means of reimagining the world – one in which the arts and culture play a crucial role. Artivism (Art + Activism) constitutes a form of counter-power, either by exposing practices of violence or by performatively asking for a new future.  Artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Tania Bruguera, and Maria Galindo, among many others, vocally affront state powers as well as the social patriarchal structures that demand people’s obedience or compliance. This has been attempted by many filmmakers in a variety of ways: using the archive to unveil hidden machines of propaganda (Sergei Loznitsa, Andrei Ujică); developing forensic filmic analyses of surveillance and power (Laura Poitras and Field of Vision, Forensic Architecture); or even producing fiction films that problematize community demands against multinationals and protection of their livelihoods (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, João Salaviza & Renée Nader Messora, Kleber Mendonça Filho).

The arts can also engage in aesthetic disobedience (Neufeld 2015) through artistic innovation or revolutionary acts that reveal and contest accepted practices and norms in the artworld. While great artistic movements have emerged from “anti-aesthetic” transgressions (Foster 1983) and the violation of artistic conventions – from Stravinsky’s disruption of tonality to Duchamp’s questioning of what counts as art –, aesthetic disobedience can also be enacted by the audience. Reactions such as booing, making noise, and stage-storming can (re)shape aesthetic appreciation and the performance itself (Neufeld 2015).

Artistic and activist practices can also be directed towards meaning by interrupting an original message with another, thus subverting or recoding the prevalent order. This semiotic disobedience (Katayal 2006) includes culture jamming, namely billboard high jacking, vandalism, defacement, cyber-squatting, property mutilation or alteration, and other forms of satirical or parodic subversion aimed at challenging corporate and governmental power and converting passive spectators into active participants.

Disobedience also involves rejecting prevailing knowledge systems. Mignolo (2009) discusses epistemic disobedience as resisting Eurocentric ways of knowing and believing, highlighting how the geopolitics of knowledge expose deep asymmetries in global scholarship and society. Artistic, spiritual, and local epistemologies can introduce alternative ideas, practices, and processes by renegotiating relations and drawing on diverse experiences. In this light, disobedience becomes a form of “epistemic delinking” (Mignolo 2007), creating and articulating meaning that exceeds the boundaries of dominant frameworks. It is about asserting the right to view and understand the world differently.

The XVI Lisbon Summer School for the Study of Culture, in association with the Porto Summer School on Art & Cinema, is dedicated to disobedience as artistic practice and an idea, exploring its multiple forms, dynamics, and limits. It examines both macro and micro acts of refusal and dissent, as well as the visible and invisible tactics used to undermine oppressive systems or disrupt established orders. By considering political action, artistic expression, and everyday transgressive actions, the Summer School ultimately seeks to understand disobedience not as a destructive force, but as a creative and transformative one.

This Summer School is organized in connection with the Disobedience Archive, a curatorial project by Marco Scotini, which will present an iteration of the exhibition at the Amélia de Mello Foundation Gallery in Lisbon, with the collaboration of Ângela Ferreira.

Disobedience Archive is a multiphase, mobile, and evolving video archive that concentrates on the relationship between artistic practices and political action. Presented fifteen times in different countries, Disobedience Archive transforms each time without ever assuming a final configuration. Whether in the form of a parliament, a school, or a community garden, the project turns the archive, typically static and taxonomic, into a dynamic and generative device. 

Papers are welcome on the following topics, amongst others:

• The arts as practices of disobedience (including cinema, contemporary art, photography or new media art, music, and literature)
• Culture and/of disobedience 
• Archives of disobedience
• Representations of disobedience
• Disobedience across the ages
• Resistance, dissent and civil disobedience
• The aesthetics of refusal and nonconformity
• Insolence and petulance
• Contestation, insubordination, insurrection, and upheaval
• Laughter/humor as disobedience
• Epistemic disobedience
• The politics of obedience: compliance, discipline, and normalization
• Disobedience in digital cultures and digital disobedience

We encourage proposals coming from the fields of cultural studies, film and the visual arts, literary and translation studies, history, anthropology, media, and political sciences, among others. We also accept new forms of artistic research, such as audiovisual essays (up to 20 minutes).

Proposals

Proposals should be sent to lxsummerschool@gmail.com no later than February 8, 2026, and include paper title, abstract in English (max. 200 words), name, e-mail address, institutional affiliation, and a brief bio (max. 100 words) mentioning ongoing research.

Applicants will be informed of the results of their submissions by February 27, 2026.

Submission of full papers/audiovisual essays

Presenters are required to send in full papers/audiovisual essays no later than April 30, 2026.

The papers and the audiovisual essays will be circulated amongst the participants. In the slot allotted to each participant (30’), only 10’ may be used for a brief summary of the research piece. The Summer School is a place for networked exchange of ideas, and organizers wish to have as much time as possible for a structured discussion between participants. Therefore, in each slot, 10’ will be used for presentation, and 20’ for discussion.

Registration fees

Participants with paper [for the entire week – includes lectures, master classes, doctoral sessions, lunches and closing dinner]

Early bird [March 6-31] – 350€

Regular [April 1 – June 1] – 450€

Participants without paper [per day – closing dinner not included]

Early bird [March 6-31] – 60€

Regular [April 1 – June 1] – 80€

Fee waivers

For The Lisbon Consortium students, CECC and CITAR researchers, PhD students and MA poster presenters from the Católica School of Arts, there is no registration fee.

For other UCP students, students from institutions affiliated with the European Summer School in Cultural Studies (ESSCS), members of the European PhD-Net in Literary and Cultural Studies, and members of the Critical Theory Network the registration fee is 120€ [Early bird – March 6-31]; 200€ [Regular – April 1-June1].

Organizing Committee

• Adriana Martins
• Alexandra Lopes
• Annimari Juvonen
• Daniel Ribas
• Diana Gonçalves
• Nuno Crespo
• Patrícia Fontes
• Paulo de Campos Pinto
• Peter Hanenberg
• Rita Faria

Scientific Committee

• Adriana Martins
• Alexandra Balona
• Alexandra Lopes
• Ana Margarida Abrantes
• Annimari Juvonen
• Carlos Natálio
• Diana Gonçalves
• Joana Moura
• Luísa Leal de Faria
• Luísa Santos
• Maria Coutinho
• Peter Hanenberg
• Paulo de Campos Pinto
• Rita Bueno Maia
• Rita Faria
• Sofia Pinto
• Sara Eckerson
• Verena Lindemann Lino