Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth

Photograph of Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth

Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth

Director and Archivist for the Center for Folklore Studies; Visiting Assistant Professor, Comparative Studies

waugh-quasebarth.1@osu.edu

468 Hagerty Hall

Areas of Expertise

  • Music and craft traditions
  • Forests and environmental policy
  • Global mountain regions
  • Place and material culture
  • Community Engagement and Archiving

Education

  • B.A., Anthropology and History, University of Virginia
  • M.A., Anthropology, University of Kentucky
  • Ph.D., Cultural Anthropology, University of Kentucky

Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth is the Director and Archivist at the Center for Folklore Studies at The Ohio State University, as well as Visiting Assistant Professor in Comparative Studies. He currently teaches the Ohio Field School course, where he partners with former coal communities in Appalachian Ohio to think through intergenerational, environment, and economic succession in place-making. He has researched musical and material craft traditions in global contexts through his work with the Smithsonian Institution’s Asian Cultural History Program and the University of Kentucky Department of Anthropology and Appalachian Center, where he earned his PhD in 2019. His recent research interests have involved craft economies and production in global mountain forests, with a focus on Carpathia and Appalachia, and collaborative methods. His recently-released book, Finding the Singing Spruce: Musical Instrument Makers and Appalachia's Mountain Forests explores the connections between the meaning of craft work and forest environments in the craft of musical instruments in West Virginia.

Click here to view an interactive introduction to his work with musical instrument makers.
Click here to visit Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth's personal website, Craft Ethnography.