Jennifer C. Lena's Books

Entitled

Discriminating Tastes and the Expansion of the Arts

By: Jennifer C. Lena

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Entitled

Discriminating Tastes and the Expansion of the Arts

By: Jennifer C. Lena

An in-depth look at how democratic values have widened the American arts scene, even as it remains elite and cosmopolitan Two centuries ago, wealthy entrepreneurs founded the American cathedrals of culture—museums, theater companies, and symphony orchestras—to mirror European art. But today’s American arts scene has widened to embrace multitudes: photography, design, comics, graffiti, jazz, and many other forms of folk, vernacular, and popular culture. What led to this dramatic expansion? In Entitled, Jennifer Lena shows how organizational transformations in the American art world—amid a shifting political, economic, technological, and social landscape—made such change possible. By chronicling the development of American art from its earliest days to the present, Lena demonstrates that while the American arts may be more open, they are still unequal. She examines key historical moments, such as the creation of the Museum of Primitive Art and the funneling of federal and state subsidies during the New Deal to support the production and display of culture. Charting the efforts to define American genres, styles, creators, and audiences, Lena looks at the ways democratic values helped legitimate folk, vernacular, and commercial art, which was viewed as nonelite. Yet, even as art lovers have acquired an appreciation for more diverse culture, they carefully select and curate works that reflect their cosmopolitan, elite, and moral tastes.

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Page Count

256

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691204799

ISBN 13

9780691204796

Measuring Culture

By: John W. Mohr,Christopher A. Bail,Margaret Frye,Jennifer C. Lena,Omar Lizardo,Terence E. McDonnell,Ann Mische,Iddo Tavory,Frederick F. Wherry

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Measuring Culture

By: John W. Mohr,Christopher A. Bail,Margaret Frye,Jennifer C. Lena,Omar Lizardo,Terence E. McDonnell,Ann Mische,Iddo Tavory,Frederick F. Wherry

Social scientists seek to develop systematic ways to understand how people make meaning and how the meanings they make shape them and the world in which they live. But how do we measure such processes? Measuring Culture is an essential point of entry for both those new to the field and those who are deeply immersed in the measurement of meaning. Written collectively by a team of leading qualitative and quantitative sociologists of culture, the book considers three common subjects of measurement—people, objects, and relationships—and then discusses how to pivot effectively between subjects and methods. Measuring Culture takes the reader on a tour of the state of the art in measuring meaning, from discussions of neuroscience to computational social science. It provides both the definitive introduction to the sociological literature on culture as well as a critical set of case studies for methods courses across the social sciences.

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Page Count

290

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231542585

ISBN 13

9780231542586

Banding Together

How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music

By: Jennifer C. Lena

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Banding Together

How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music

By: Jennifer C. Lena

Why do some music styles gain mass popularity while others thrive in small niches? Banding Together explores this question and reveals the attributes that together explain the growth of twentieth-century American popular music. Drawing on a vast array of examples from sixty musical styles--ranging from rap and bluegrass to death metal and South Texas polka, and including several created outside the United States--Jennifer Lena uncovers the shared grammar that allows us to understand the cultural language and evolution of popular music. What are the common economic, organizational, ideological, and aesthetic traits among contemporary genres? Do genres follow patterns in their development? Lena discovers four dominant forms--Avant-garde, Scene-based, Industry-based, and Traditionalist--and two dominant trajectories that describe how American pop music genres develop. Outside the United States there exists a fifth form: the Government-purposed genre, which she examines in the music of China, Serbia, Nigeria, and Chile. Offering a rare analysis of how music communities operate, she looks at the shared obstacles and opportunities creative people face and reveals the ways in which people collaborate around ideas, artworks, individuals, and organizations that support their work.

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Page Count

257

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1400840457

ISBN 13

9781400840458

Making Middle-Class Multiculturalism

Immigration Bureaucrats and Policymaking in Postwar Canada

By: Jennifer Elrick

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Making Middle-Class Multiculturalism

Immigration Bureaucrats and Policymaking in Postwar Canada

By: Jennifer Elrick

Making Middle-Class Multiculturalism re-interprets the historiography of the emergence of Canada's universal immigration policy for skilled workers and family immigrants in the 1950s and 1960s.

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