Assistant Professor of Sociology
Vanderbilt University
321C Garland

jennifer.c.lena@vanderbilt.edu

+1 615 322 8539

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 Assistant Professor of Sociology, New York University, 2007-08.
Visiting Fellow, Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University.  2007-2008.

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

Lena, Jennifer C. and Richard A. Peterson.   2008.  "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.

My research spans the divide among Sociologists of Culture between those who study the production and consumption of cultural material.  I view cultural production as a field wherein flows of resources—both material and ideological—unite organizational and individual agents.  I understand that patterns of consumption driven by socially constructed identities, influence and are influenced by strategic decision making by organizational actors within a field context shaped by demographic, political, legal, economic and social factors.  In each of my projects, I seek to unite these levels of analysis.  Recently, my work has achieved this unification by theorizing processes of innovation and diffusion which effect and are effected by actions of artists and consumers, and institutional and community contexts.  In this way, I see my work in the next several years as an extension of my dissertation work on sub-genre formation in rap music, while representing a substantial expansion of that work—both in its focus on large-scale processes of innovation and diffusion, and in the inclusion of artistic fields other than rap music.  I am also increasingly interested in the role of aesthetic theory in a sociological analysis of art community dynamics.  I am seeking ways to analyze patterns within art objects which reflect the durable consequences of social structure.  I employ multiple methodologies in my work in order to track resources, including qualitative (interviews, participant-observation, content or document analysis) and quantitative approaches (traditional statistics and social network analysis).  This flexibility reflects my anchoring not in a set of methodological alliances but to a set of driving questions. 

Pachucki, Mark, Jennifer C. Lena and Steven Tepper.  Creative Campus Project.  Under review.

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

Richard A. Peterson and Jennifer C. Lena.  “Classification of Music Types and Trajectories.”  Solicited for Review.

Lena, Jennifer C.  "The Personal Tastes of Music Critics.”  In preparation.