Territorialisation and power in Portuguese America. The creation of comarcas (16th-18th centuries)

The general aim of this article is to analyse the political organisation of the territory in Portuguese America from the start of the building up of the Crown judiciary system from in the 16th to the 18th centuries and to look into the causes of its belatedness in comparison to what happened in Spanish America. The focus will however be on the comarcas through the reconstitution of the process leading to the setting up of these judiciary divisions. Four stages of this process will be identified and discussion will ensue over the social and political contexts in which these political and administrative novelties came to happen. It is claimed that the delay in the structuring of the judicial network in the States of Brazil and Maranhão stems from the fact that the Portuguese advance into the territories took place at a later stage. The comparisons between the two systems will also bring other differences to the fore, not least the greater rigidity of the Spanish model in contrast to the more experimental character of the Portuguese one, and the resilience found to exist in the donatarial system. It is also worth to point out that given solutions were the result of the will of central power as much as of local initiative, and it is suggested that the building up of the crown’s political apparatus (in which the judiciary network is included) brought about the connivance,albeit ephemeral, of social interests which are considered contradictory or irreconcilable by some authors.

Alexander Scriabin: the definition of a new sound space in the crisis of tonality

This dissertation describes the new compositional system introduced by Scriabin in 1909– 1910, focusing on Feuillet d’Album op. 58, Poème op. 59, nº1, Prélude op. 59, nº2 and Promethée op. 60. Based upon exhaustive pitch and formal analysis the present study (a) claims the inexistence of non-functional pitches in all analysed works, (b) shows that transpositional procedures have structural consequences on the “basic chord”, and (c) for the first time advances an explanation on the intrinsic relation between the sonata form and the slow Luce line in Promethée op. 60; RESUMO: Sob o título de “Alexander Scriabin: a definição dum novo espaço sonoro na crise da Tonalidade”, a presente tese descreve o novo sistema compositivo introduzido por Scriabin em 1909– 1910, tomando como ponto de partida o estudo de Feuillet d’Album op. 58, Poème op. 59, nº1, Prélude op. 59, nº2 e Promethée op. 60. Baseando-se numa análise exaustiva das alturas e da forma, este estudo (a) conclui pela inexistência de alturas não funcionais em qualquer das obras analisadas, (b) mostra que os procedimentos transpositivos têm consequências estruturais no “acorde básico”, e (c) pela primeira vez explica a estrutura formal de Promethée op. 60 a partir da relação intrínseca entre a sua forma sonata e a linha lenta de Luce.