Jennifer C. Lena

Jennifer C. Lena is a sociologist employed as Associate Professor of Arts Administration at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York. 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 who has published three books [Measuring Culture (2020), Entitled (2021), and Banding Together (2012)] and dozens of articles, essays, and reports. She has 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. Currently, she serves on the SNAAP Career Lab Technical Working Group (NEA, AARU), on the Faculty Advisory Board for Columbia University Press, and on the boards of Poetics and DIY journal. Lena is completing two book manuscripts: one analyzing the American junk drawer (with Terry McDonnell) and the other exploring the federal taxation of the performing arts.

Soucek, Brian and Jennifer C. Lena. 2025. “Tax Law as Muse.” Cornell Law Review. Vol. 110 (8): 671-748. Winner: Inaugural Art Law Scholarship Award, American Association of Law Schools (2025).

Hénaut, Leonie, Jennifer C. Lena, and Fabian Accominotti. 2023. “Polyoccupationalism: Expertise Stretch and Status Stretch in the Postindustrial Era.” American Sociological Review. Vol. 88 (5): 872-900.

John Mohr, Christopher Bail, Maggie Frye, Jennifer C. Lena, Omar Lizardo, Terence McDonnell, Ann Mische, Iddo Tavory, and Frederick Wherry. 2020. Measuring Culture. Columbia University Press

Lena, Jennifer C. 2019. Entitled: Discriminating Tastes and the Expansion of the Arts. Princeton University Press.