Jennifer C. Lena

Sen. Jennifer C. Lena is a sociologist employed as Associate Professor of Arts Administration at Teachers College, Columbia University. Lena specializes in the production of culture in America: both the labor of creators and the classification of objects, people, and groups into categories (e.g., genres, “high” art). She is an award-winning author of three books [Measuring Culture (CUP, 2020), Entitled (PUP, 2021), and Banding Together (PUP, 2012)] and dozens of articles, essays, and reports. 

Currently, she serves on the SNAAP Career Lab Technical Working Group, chairs the Faculty Advisory Board for Columbia University Press, co-edits the Culture & Economic Life book series (Stanford UP), and serves on the boards of Poetics and DIY journal. She previously served as editor of the journal Poetics, as Vice President of the Eastern Sociological Association, and chair of the Culture Sections at both the American Sociological Association and Social Science History Association, among other leadership positions. Lena is completing two book manuscripts: one analyzing the American junk drawer (with Terry McDonnell, Chicago UP, 2027) and the other exploring the federal taxation of the performing arts.