The Questionnaire: Manuel Castells

By The QuestionnaireMarch 28, 2012

How do you get up in the morning? 


By leaving the bed on my own feet...


 


Do you succumb to nostalgia? 


Every day.


 


Do you write long and cut, or short and backfill? 


Long and short, but I do not cut (books 500 pages, articles one thousand words)


 


How do you feel about your Wikipedia entry? 


Terrible, do not trust it at all. It is half invented, half wrong and always outdated.


 


Lunch with any three people who ever lived; who do you invite? 


Assuming they are intellectual types and not the people I am in love with, this would be Alain Touraine, Nicos Poulantzas and Facundo Cabral.


 


Best piece of advice you ever received? 


Be intelligent enough to manage your intelligence.


 


Disciplined or hot dog? 


Very disciplined.


 


Have you ever been defeated by a genre? 


Music.


 


Which classic author would you like to see kicked out of the pantheon? Descartes.


 


Are you okay with blood? 


No, I faint.


 


Who is your imagined audience? Does it at all coincide with the real one?


Yes, these are the people, everywhere, who have the courage and the sincerity to change the world.


 


What country would you want to be exiled in? 


I was exiled in several and the one I liked best was California...


 


What's your favorite negative emotion? 


Sadness.


 


Is your study neat, or, like John Muir's, is your desk and floor covered in "lateral, medial, and terminal moraines"?


Basically neat, although with material piling up when I am in the writing process.


 


What is your go-to shoe? 


Spanish high fashion black leather shoes...


 


What's your poison? 


Travelling.


 


What's your problem? 


To balance everything in a too rich life.


 


Title of the book you're probably never going to write, but would kind of like to get around to? 


Our world, our lives.


 


What are you so afraid of? 


I am actually fearless.


 


How long can you go without putting paw to keyboard? 


A nanosecond.


 


Do you require a high thread count? 


The softer the better.


 


Who reads you first? 


My poor students.


 


Sexy and dangerous, or brilliant and kind? 


All of the above.


 


What character or story haunts you? 


George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.


 


Does plot matter? 


Absolutely.


 


Does age matter? 


Not when you are old.


 


Do you prefer to write standing, or must you lie prone in a field of dandelions with a steno pad and a good pen? Or what?


Nicely seated in a wooden chair and writing on white paper with a nice fountain pen with black ink.


 


Who is the author you'd most like to impersonate online? 


Isidora Chacon.


 


Is there a literary community? 


There is a global network and local tribes.


 


What's the question or questions we should have asked, had we known? 


Is scientific research as creative as literary fiction?


 

LARB Contributor

The Questionnaire is, as her name suggests, a multifarious and mysterious interlocutor. Chameleon-like, her questions change their color as they approach each new interviewee.

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