Techne in the Puerto Rican Indie Rock Scene

For my final project of the course CCR 711: Rhetorics of Craft, I will be using a case study of the band Los Petardos! to showcase the individual/collaborative “nature” of this band’s recording process, and life performances that allow them to build a presence in the Puerto Rican indie rock scene, and beyond. I aim to look at their craft by interviewing several of its members, and asking about how they learned to play the instruments they play, how they developed a distinct sound by fusing North American influences, specifically garage punk, with more typically Puerto Rican sounds, and how this has culminated in a particular product: Boricua Rock? Rock and Roll con gandules? The latter will be investigated by performing textual analysis of online and newspaper articles that have been written about the band. The purpose of this study is to consider how Los Petardos! use their craft to create a “sound” that has repercussions in building up a particular rhetoric of nationhood, in addition to the lyrical content of their songs.

A potential timeline for this project is:

• Nov. 1-10: Build up theoretical framework and construct research questions
• Nov. 11-20: Begin collecting textual data
• Nov. 21-28: Conduct interviews
• Dec. 1-10: Data analysis and final write-up

It is worth noting that I will record the interviews, which would allow me to make this a video project. However, due to time constraints I will write the standard academic paper and publish it in a blog that provides the opportunity of incorporating these videos.

‘Craft’ from a Feminist Perspective

My trip to the Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference at Stanford University last week has generated some interesting insights about “craft.” From our discussions in class, terms such as: making, stuff, to bring forth or poesis, maker, agent, experience, skill, and materiality, among others were in the back of my mind as I went to a panel titled “Embodied Rhetorics of Craft.” Each presentation allowed me to see how these young scholars are paying attention to these and other concepts that the study of a craft can elicit. They also made sure to connect their presentations to the field of composition. Some of these connections were related to how a craft is aimed at constructing something that can be useful to particular audiences, notions of place/space for meaning and identity in a craft group, interactive and collaborative features of craft websites compared to online platforms that we use to supplement our teaching, and how digital literacies can provide self-sponsorship. For those of us who study the composition process, its aims and consequences, it is easy to see the relevance of considering audience, the negotiation of identity through writing, and the resources that allow for more student participation/involvement.

In addition, on my way to the conference I was reading Richard Sennett’s chapter on Material Consciousness. Specifically, I found myself thinking about his discussion of metamorphosis that objects go through in a creative process. As in much of his book, Sennett goes back to Plato and Aristotle. Sennett alludes to Plato’s assertion that while “physical things decay, their form or idea endures” and points to Aristotle’s argument that “verbal expression is not bounded by the specific sounds of words—which is why we can translate from one language to the other.” Because of these ancient propositions, he maintains, Western civilization values the head over the hand, “the theorist better than the craftsman because ideas last.” Moreover, he goes on to challenge this view and suggests that the term “theoria shares a root in Greek with theatron, a theater, which means literally a ‘place for seeing,’” attempting to describe those involved in the development of the theater as spectators who have a more active role in the performance. He described the audience of that time as critics—can we say theorists? There are some overlaps between what Sennett is referring to here, and what some of the presenters brought up at the conference.

For example, the interactive performance that narrows the divide between the audience and the actors in the theater that Sennett described can be compared to the roles of students and teachers. Kristin Ravel argued that ravelry.com provides a sort of interactive collaboration among its users that could be incorporated into our classrooms; changing the ways we present our material to students. Also, this kind of ‘place for seeing’ was how Marilee Brooks-Gillies characterized the Crafty Beavers, a group of graduate students who got together to simply “make stuff” but who ended up theorizing about the gender dynamics within the group, negotiating meanings of their different identities. Both of these presentations also focus on the social aspect of crafting, eliminating the notion of the solitary artist/crafter. There are numerous ways in which we can start to apply some of the suggestions that Ravel made in her presentation, and these would potentially increase the students’ agency in the classroom. We can also benefit from the consideration of how “making stuff” can have other consequences, especially if we start to reflect upon these processes products along with our students. However, Brooks-Gillies raised a question about gender participation in craft that I had already started thinking about and would like to continue exploring further in the future. I’ve already questioned the concept of Crafts-man, but am now forced to think of the phrase “crafting is just for women.” It clearly isn’t and it may be just a matter of audience, but it would be interesting to keep studying how gendered craft can be.