Denise Milstein - Incite at Columbia University

Denise Milstein is a sociologist whose work develops a relational, historically grounded perspective at the intersection of art and politics, and culture and the environment.

Based in her examination of popular music, she has written and published on the articulation of urban imaginaries through songs, the impact of repression on artistic careers, the connection and conflict between political engagement and counter-culture, and the emergence of innovation from artistic revivals. Concerns with environmental sustainability, collaboration across disciplines, and participatory action research have become central to her most recent work. Current projects examine urban dwellers’ access to nature in New York City public spaces; the interactions of artists and archivists with near-obsolete technologies in marginal spaces of cultural production and reproduction; and a collaborative practice interweaving art, social science, and environmental research with the Ensayos collective, based in Tierra del Fuego.

She is most interested in how the structural limitations of political and environmental crises give rise to innovation, cultural shifts, and social change. She directs the stand-alone MA Program in Sociology at Columbia University; is co-director of the NYC COVID-19 Oral History, Narrative and Memory Archive; and edits Dispatches from the Field, a series dedicated to publishing collections of ethnographic data fresh from the field.