Elizabeth Povinelli is a professor of anthropology at Columbia University whose books include The Empire of Love: Toward a Theory of Intimacy, Geneology, and Carnality (2006), The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism (2002), and Labor's Lot: The Power, History and Culture of Aboriginal Action (1994).

Beth and I met in 2005 at cast member Michael Warner's New York loft and did our interview there prior to a screening of the movie-in-progress.