A small room inside a bay window. A single bed, a table and chair, and a sink. I could manage something larger, with more conveniences, but I could never match the view.

Some new books by my bedside, both ordered from Pulp Fiction, both in support of my current research interests: Critical Regionalism: Connecting Politics and Culture in the American Landscape by Douglas Reichert Powell (2007) and Who Sings the Nation-State? (2007) by Judith Butler and Gayatri Spivak.

So far, neither book is doing much for me. Powell, a scholar from Johnson City, Tennessee, is at his best when writing on representations of Appalachia in film (Deliverance and the remake of Cape Fear), but has yet to convince me of a critical regional methodology. As for this Butler-Spivak joint, it is the Kantian Butler who is doing most of the talking, with the ever-encouraging Hegelian Spivak waiting to disagree.