How has the academic approach to Rio de Janeiro s slums changed over the years? What traits of the earlier portrayals are still present nowadays? How does the contemporary intellectual deal with the identity of the segregated individuals? This dissertation is aimed at providing possible answers to the above questions. For such, an analysis of literary and musical works has been coupled with a perspective prioritizing collisions and proximities regarding the city s secluded communities and the scholar´s viewpoint. Rather than a standardized image of the slum, we have thus come across a diversity of visions, most of which quite conflictive. Despite historical differences, we have also noticed that both in the chronicles of the twentieth century and in present-day fiction it is difficult to elaborate on this Other still being excluded from the formal aspects of the city.