Assistant Professor of Sociology
Vanderbilt University
321C Garland

jennifer.c.lena@vanderbilt.edu

+1 615 322 8539

Editorial Board, Social Forces, 2009-2010.
Co-Chair, Culture Network, Social Science History Association, 2008-2011.
Member of Informal Working Group on Festivals, National Endowment for the Arts, 2008.
Secretary-Treasurer, Sociology of Culture section, American Sociological Association, 2008-2010.
Visiting Fellow, Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University.  2007-2008.

Lena, Jennifer C. and Richard A. Peterson.  Forthcoming.  "Politically-Purposed Music Genres,"  American Behavioral Scientist.  Special isue: Globalization and Diversity in Cultural Fields: Comparative Perspectives on Music, Literature and Television.

Pachucki, Mark A., Jennifer C. Lena and Steven Tepper.  Forthcoming.  "Creativity narratives among college students: Sociability and everyday creativity."  The Sociological Quarterly.

Lena, Jennifer C. and Peter Levin.  2009.  "Valuing Art."  Contexts Magazine. Vol. 8 (2): 60-62.

Lena, Jennifer C.  2009.  Book review of Hollywood Highbrow: From Entertainment to Art.  (By Shyon Baumann.  2007.)  American Journal of Sociology.  Vol. 114 (6): 1894-1896.

Lena, Jennifer C. and Richard A. Peterson.   2008.  "Classification as Culture: Types and Trajectories of Music Genres."  American Sociological Review. 73 (5): 697-718 +online supplement. Lena, Jennifer C.  2008.  "Voyeurism and Resistance in Rap Music Videos."  Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies.  5 (3): 264-279.

Lena, Jennifer C. and Daniel B. Cornfield.  2008.  “Immigrant Arts Participation in Nashville.”  Pp. 147-169 in Engaging Art: The Next Great Transformation of America’s Cultural Life, ed. By William Ivey and Steven Tepper.  New York: Routledge. 

Lena, Jennifer C.  2007.  Book review of Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge.  (By Keith Kahn-Harris. 2007.)  American Journal of Sociology.  Vol. 113 (3): 927-929.

Lena, Jennifer C.  2007.  "Measures of Diversity: Lessons from Rap Music, 1979-1995."  Studi Culturali. Vol 1: 137-160.

Lena, Jennifer C.  2006.  “Social Context and Musical Content: Rap Music, 1979-1995.”  Social Forces.  Vol. 85 (1): 479-495.

Lena, Jennifer C.  2005. Book review of Real Country: Music and Language in Working-Class Culture.  (By Aaron A. Fox.  Duke University Press.  2004.)  American Journal of Sociology.  Vol. 111 (2).

Lena, Jennifer C.  2004.  “Meaning and Membership: Samples in Rap Music, 1979 to 1995.” Poetics.  Vol. 32, No. 3-4, pp. 297-310.

Lena, Jennifer C.  2003.  “Psyops, Propaganda and Gangsta Rap: Why is Saddam Hussein rapping for the CIA?”  Radical Society.  Vol. 30, No.1, pp. 25-30.

Schindler, Amy and Jennifer Carroll Lena.  2000. “Promise Keepers in Perspective: Organizational Characteristics and Men’s Religious Movements.”  Pp. 209-224 in Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion.  Volume 11.  Edited by Joanne Marie Greer and David O. Moberg.  Stamford, Connecticut: JAI Press, Inc.

As a scholar and educator, my work centers on features of the production and consumption of culture. My research aims to comprehend the communities, organizations and networks in which culture is generated and the influences those contexts have on culture.  In a series of articles about musical communities, I discovered patterns of organization that impact the qualities of the music produced by artists. In a second project cluster, I undertake the study of innovation and creativity within communities using primarily qualitative methods to understand how consumers produce meanings through cultural consumption. My third major venture illuminates the dynamic relationships between producers and consumers of culture through a study of elites consumption of lowbrow culture.

Lena, Jennifer C. Festival City Project.  Under review.

Lena, Jennifer C.  “Press Kits and the Myth of Professional Autonomy.”  Under review.

Lena, Jennifer C.  “Slumming: The Social Reproduction of Prestige Through Elite Consumption of Lowbrow Culture.” In development.

Lena, Jennifer C. and Mark Pachucki.  “Networks of Rap Samples.”  In development.