Marcel Proust, was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier rendered as Remembrance of Things Past), published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927. He is considered by critics and writers to be one of the most influential authors of the 20th century.
The Proust Questionnaire is a questionnaire about one's personality. Its name and modern popularity as a form of interview is owed to the responses given by the French writer Marcel Proust.
The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature.
The basic Proust Questionnaire is:
1.What is your idea of perfect happiness?
2.What is your greatest fear?
3.What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
4.What is the trait you most deplore in others?
5.Which living person do you most admire?
6.What is your greatest extravagance?
7.What is your current state of mind?
8.What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
9.On what occasion do you lie?
10.What do you most dislike about your appearance?
11.Which living person do you most despise?
12.What is the quality you most like in a man?
13.What is the quality you most like in a woman?
14.Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
15.What or who is the greatest love of your life?
16.When and where were you happiest?
17.Which talent would you most like to have?
18.If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
19.What do you consider your greatest achievement?
20.If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
21.Where would you most like to live?
22.What is your most treasured possession?
23.What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
24.What is your favorite occupation?
25.What is your most marked characteristic?
26.What do you most value in your friends?
27.Who are your favorite writers?
28.Who is your hero of fiction?
29.Which historical figure do you most identify with?
30.Who are your heroes in real life?
31.What are your favorite names?
32.What is it that you most dislike?
33.What is your greatest regret?
34.How would you like to die?
35.What is your motto?
DIRECTIONS FOR PHOTOGRAPHS.
*Photograph someone above the age of 30yo.
1. Photograph your subject in intentional light.
2. Your subject can be sitting, standing, leaning.
3. The photograph should be a full body photograph - meaning: not a close-up of your subject. Include their entire physical being in the photograph.
4. Perhaps photograph them in a favorite place, time of day, intentional location...
5. Make TEN photographs of your subject in this place/time/location at different angles/(Yes, they will be similar, but one will surely be the best one).
DIRECTIONS FOR QUESTIONNAIRE:
1. Both you and your subject should put your phones out of reach.
2. Set aside a moment when you can sit with your subject.
3. Make some tea/coffee or fill a glass of water for you each, and get comfortable.
4. Ask your subject each question, pausing to record their answer accurately (word-for-word) on paper.
5. If it does, let conversation happen.
6. Thank them for their time.
*Bring the photographs & answers to each question to next class.
