Describe yourself in three words
Spanish, academic, historian.
What are your interests, what do you like to do in your free time?
My free time is mostly (and this is good news) taken by my little daughter. I like to spend time with her, playing and reading books to her. It’s great because it brings me back to a kind of fantasy time. Children don’t yet really grasp the evil of society. The second favourite thing – but I don’t have much time now to do it – is watching football games!
Which books have you read that have really made a mark on you?
In my own field of history, I would say there are two: One book by a Marxist American, Arno Mayer, called ‘The Persistence of the Old Regime’, which I read whilst studying at the University of Valencia. It’s probably the book that led me to be an academic. Then when I came to England, Paul Preston’s ‘The Coming of the Spanish Civil War’, was a book that made me realise how historians can tell such complex stories. I was honoured later on that he became my friend and my supervisor. He wrote in such a friendly mannered way, with a great sense of humour about such a complex issue, so I greatly admire these two books. In the last ten years I haven’t read very much fiction, but when I was much younger I used to like the classics—Tolstoy etc. One of the ways in which I find escapism is by reading detective stories. At the moment I’m reading the books by a guy called Michael Connelly about an American detective in LA called Harry Bosch, this tough guy, a kind of antihero.
Do you have any hidden talents?
I think one of my great hidden talents-or perhaps not so hidden- is that I can be extremely sarcastic. But I find, especially with English people, that it sometimes doesn’t work. If someone asks, “what do you like about England?” I’ll say, “Well, the weather!” (When actually the weather is horrible!) There’s another hidden art I’ve noticed I’m very good at: my daughter has just turned seven, so now is the age where she is beginning to get all the little games, and she always wants me to play “monster”. My daughter’s friends love this- I’m in high demand! I am the monster, and they call me names and I have to go and find them. They seem to have a great time, but what they don’t know is that I have an even better time than them! So yes, I think I have a good rapport with children.
If you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?
Marilyn Monroe, because I have always thought (this is very cliché) that she is one of the most beautiful women ever. So…that would be a dream. Another person who has been very influential in my thoughts is an Italian thinker called Antonio Gramsci. He influenced much of my work, so I would love to have dinner with him. But I’d prefer Marilyn Monroe!
Are there any powerful women you really admire?
Ah, not Margaret Thatcher. I saw a film about a Mexican painter called Frida Kahlo, and I thought she was extraordinary. I also think that Dolores Ibárruri, who was the leader of the Communist Party during the civil war, was a very powerful and very skillful leader. She did a lot in Spain’s macho dominated society to revert the role of how important women can be. More present day, in terms of music (not that I’m in the game anymore), I have always thought that women are much better singers, and I love Pati Smith, Deborah Harry. In terms of books, now that I’m into detective fiction, most of them are written by men, but Sue Grafton is very good. I also used to read a lot of Agatha Christie; she’s extraordinary in terms of creating an atmospheric setting.
What do you love about teaching?
Ironically, if you had asked me twenty odd years ago what the main things that attracted me to the job were, I would have said teaching would be pretty low on the list, but now it would be quite high. And if you ask me when I retire one day what would be the thing that I’d miss the most, it would be teaching. I think one of the great things about Bristol University- as I have been in other universities- is that Bristol attracts an extremely able group of students. There is a high level of very active debate and, especially at final year level, the students can teach you a lot too.
Is there any advice you would give students on how to get the most out of their university experience and life afterwards?
One day you will look back and realise that these are the best years of your life! When you leave university, you will have other worries. Whether to get married or not, whether to have kids or not, whether you have a job or not, a house, a mortgage… and your life will go in a completely different direction. And whatever that direction is, when you look back at these years, you will see that the friends you made are often the best friends you make in life, the amount of knowledge and debate is at its peak, as are the options open to you in terms of societies and even nightlife. So what I would say to students is 1) Take advantage of your teachers — they are there to help you and 2) don’t forget that life doesn’t have to be that serious! Make friends, go out, go to parties, socialise — if you’re a language student, have a great year abroad: because these are the experiences that you will cherish for the rest of your life. And many of the experiences you will go on to have in your professional life – interviews, jobs and so on, you have already – consciously or unconsciously- acquired the skills to succeed at these and in life: the capacity to understand, to structure things, to defend your own argument, to sell new ideas — these are the things you learn here, so you should go without fear and enter into a new chapter of your life.