Rio de Janeiro: Divided and Reunited

Dr. George Yúdice is professor of Spanish, Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. His expertise ranges from Latin American Avant-Gardes to Cultural Studies and Cultural Policy Studies. His most recent publications are On Edge: The Crisis of Contemporary Latin American Culture (1992), Cultural Policy, co-authored with Toby Miller (2002) and The Expediency of Culture: The Uses of Culture in the Global Era (2003).

By examining examples of literature that deal with the topic of segregation, Yúdice analyses the political, economic, social and cultural factors that divide the poor, by race predetermined dwellers of the favelas (favelados) from the middle and higher classes. It also questions how approaches in the cultural field, above all music, can help to overcome segregation.