About Jennifer C. Lena

Jennifer C Lena is a cultural sociologist who studies classification, particularly the organizational and institutional conditions for the creation, modification, or elimination of cultural categories like genres.

She currently works as an Associate Professor of Arts Administration at Teachers College, Columbia University and has a courtesy appointment in the Department of Sociology. She co-edits (with Dr. Frederick Wherry) a book series, Culture and Economic Life, published by Stanford University Press, and serves on the board of the journal DIY, Alternative Cultures and Society, and the Columbia University Press Faculty Publication Committee. As former co-editor of the journal Poetics, she remains on its board. She is also a member of the Research Advisory Committee for the Social Science Research Council’s Arts Research with Communities of Color.

Lena holds an MA, MPhil, and PhD in Sociology from Columbia University, and a BA from Colgate University.

She is a past fellow of the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton University, and the Curb Center for Arts, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University, and held faculty positions at Vanderbilt University and Barnard College. She is past Chair of the Sociology of Culture Section of the American Sociological Association. She is former co-chair of the Culture Network of the Social Science History Association, and former Vice President of the Eastern Sociological Society. She is past chair of the Personnel Sub-Committee of Teachers College’s Faculty Executive Committee, and served as Program Director for the Arts Administration Program from 2015-2020. Lena has served as Senior Research Scholar for the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project at Indiana University, and assisted in the development and revision of that survey of over 200,000 graduates from art programs spread across North America. In 2000, she was Inaugural Resident Scholar at the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s show, “Hip Hop America: Roots, Rhythm and Rage.” Lena is reputed to be the first sociologist to commission a Grammy-nominated album: Hilos (composer: Gabriela Frank; performed by ALIAS Chamber Ensemble; released in 2010 by Naxos Records).