The study of the literary and cultural representation of consumption and the commodity provides new ways of thinking about orientalism and colonialism, which are often construed through a psychoanalytic discourse of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’. This history of the subject can be expanded with histories of the object in colonial and orientalist texts.
The first draft was a bit ruder about postcolonial studies, which at the time was mired in identity politics. It's from a chapter on sugar.
Then it became popular to replace The Fascinating History of Mr. Charles Dickens with The Fascinating History of the Potato and I got out of food studies. Le plus ca change...