![]() ![]() Even when they appear marginal, secondary to a novel’s ‘true’ work of psychological insight, they often turn out to be central. Literary figurations of food and eating, after all, are rarely just incidental. I find it pleasing, too, to see that others are growing interested in this subject-and not (just) because I’m obsessed with food but also because I believe that literary critics in the past have sometimes taken less notice of the material world than the writers whom they have examined and that reflecting on food-and turning ourselves, more generally, into what Michel de Certeau once called “voyagers in the ordinary” (xxxix)-can, accordingly, help to address what remains something of a silence in our discourse. ![]() It is always gratifying to find scholars and students elsewhere in the world taking an interest in my writing on food, race, and literature. Plenty of obvious reasons, of course, explain why the request gladdened me so much. Getting their invitation to be the professorial voice for this year’s issue of aspeers was a nice surprise and provided a welcome bright point in a period that has been a bit wearing for UK universities. Let me begin this essay by thanking the editors. ![]()
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