Exploring the relationship between literature, film, ethnography and the cultural imaginary, this course views literature and film as different forms of writing culture. We will explore the specific role and devices of the literary in relation to the visual and to other discourses on culture such as ethnography and cultural theory. In this context, we will develop a method of reading that emphasizes the complex transcodings (as defined by Jameson in The Political Unconscious) between the literary/aesthetic, the cultural/ethnographic, and the psychological. We will explore topics such as the colonial imaginary and the colonization of psychic space, violent histories and trauma, and the social construction of childhood.