News
Humanities Institute and Center for Folklore Studies Partner to Celebrate Mothman Legend
This November marks the 60th anniversary of the first Mothman sightings in Ohio and West Virginia…
We have news about our team: Merrill Kaplan, the director for the Center for Folklore Studies, has been promoted to Professor of Folklore and Scandinavian Studies. Our CFS Affiliate, Dr. Mintzi…
Professor Mark Bender, (Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and affiliate of the Center for Folklore Studies), presented the Richard M. Dorson Memorial Lecture in the Department of…
On February 26th, the Indiana University (IU) College of Arts and Sciences presented Dr. Dorothy Noyes, director of OSU’s Mershon Center for International Security Studies, with its
On February 25, 2026, Professor Mark Bender (Department of East Asian Languages and Literature) gave a presentation at the International Seminar on Folk Narratives in Indian Literary and…
Center for Folklore Studies GRA Nick Booker, alongside fellow students Di Wang and Ted Nagasawa, interviewed Dr. Stephen Mitchell on Scandinavian folklore and memorial landscapes.
Listen to…
The folklore reading room (Hagerty 455A) is now open during specific hours for the autumn semester. These are the standard open hours through the end of the semester:
Mondays: 9 am – 5 pm
Congratulations to OSU folklore alumna Puja Batra-Wells on receiving a 2025 Distinguished Staff Award. Puja is currently the Associate Director of the the Global Arts + Humanities office.
Job Title
Post Doctoral Scholar - Center for Folklore Studies
DepartmentArts and Sciences | Center for Folklore Studies
Follow this link to applyThe deadline to apply is May 30.
At the April 22 end-of-year celebration, the Humanities Institute's center directors announced their award winners for the academic year. Undergraduate and graduate students were present to…
The Center for Folklore Studies has announced this year’s recipients of the Graduate Student Travel Grant, supporting folklore scholars as they present their research at major conferences around…
The Folklore Reading Room (Hagerty 455A) is now open during normal working hours.
These are the standard open hours through the end of spring semester:
Mondays: 10 am –…
"Our Shared Traditions: More than Human Experiences" conference on February 28th and March 1st, was an incredible success! Graduate students from the Folklore Student Association led the way in…
The Center for Folklore Studies is offering one-time, small travel grants for currently enrolled graduate students pursuing the Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization to present at folklore…
The Folklore Student Association is hosting an art competition to design a mascot and design element for the annual Indiana University and Ohio State University Graduate Student Conference in…
Creation of Outreach Theatre: The Urban Forest
This undergraduate course will give students a chance to explore performance as a means of impacting our community. Details of the…
Shared Traditions: More than Human Experiences February 28- March 1, 2025 | The Ohio State University | Columbus, OH
The Indiana University/Ohio State University Graduate Student…
At the April 16 end-of-year celebration, the Humanities Insitute's center directors announced their award winners for the academic year. Undergraduate and graduate students were present to receive…
CFS Director and Archivist Dr. Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth gave an interview with Ohio State News to celebrate the upcoming eclipse on April 8th. In the article, Dr. Waugh-Quasebarth provides…
Rhiar Kanouse, the Graduate Research Associate for the Center for Folklore Studies, presented at the 2024 American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) conference in Montreal, Canada. Her…
Congratulations to CFS Director and Archivist Dr. Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth as Weatherford Awards honors his book Finding the Singing Spruce: Musical Instrument Makers and Appalachia’s Mountain…
Congratulations to CFS Director and Archivist Dr. Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth on his recent article, "Appalachian Collections at the Ohio State University Center for Folklore Studies Archive." His…
The Center for Folklore Studies announces one-time, small travel grants for currently enrolled graduate students pursuing the Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization to present at folklore…
CFS Director Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth spoke on the plenary panel of the College of Arts & Sciences Equity and Justice Symposium, which was sponsored by the office of Office of Diversity, Equity,…
The Center for Folklore Studies celebrates the publication of Claiming Space: Performing the Personal through Decorated Mortarboard, a work by Sheila Bock, a folklorist and OSU alumna…
The Center for Folklore Studies celebrates the publication of Finding the Singing Spruce: Musical Instrument Makers and Appalachia's Mountain Forests by Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth, director…
Click the PDF below to download this month's newsletter. Find information on upcoming events, funding opportunities and more.
It's time to apply for our annual spring awards. The Patrick B. Mullen Graduate Prize is funded by the Patrick B. Mullen Endowment Fund, which was established in recognition of…
We're pleased to announce a new folklore course to be offered Spring 2023. "Folklore of the Americas: Appalachia" will be taught by Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth as an undergraduate course.
…
This past semester, professors Amy Shuman and Mary Hufford were awarded Discovery Field School Grant Awards, which allowed them to “take students to domestic…
On June 14th, 2022, Sarah Craycraft defended Reinventing the Village: Generations, Heritage and Revitalization in Contemporary Bulgaria, a dissertation that committee members described as…
The Center for Folklore Studies is delighted to announce the launch of the newest collection in its archive: OSU Student Digital Folklore Collection (SDFC). The aim of the SDFC is to gather,…
Nine students in CS 4193 Border Issues and Immigrant Rights Activism in Ohio completed their final projects, documenting their visits to immigrant communities, immigrant rights groups and points…
Call for Submissions
This is an annual $200 cash award for the year's best folklore paper by an OSU undergraduate. It honors beloved emeritus professor Daniel R. Barnes, who taught folklore and…
Since 2006, the OSU Folklore Student Association has sponsored The Dan Barnes Joke Award. This award is given to the person who submits the best response to a joke prompt.
This year's…
The Patrick B. Mullen Prize is awarded annually for the best graduate student paper or project submitted during the academic year. The prize is given in honor of the significant contributions made…
Friday's 13th Francis Lee Utley lecture featured Dr. James Revell Carr, Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology and Musicology and director of the John…
Solimar Otero, Professor of Folklore in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University, Bloomington, was recently interviewed for the Latin@ Stories podcast. In this episode,…
Professor Solimar Otero's recent lecture, “Archives of Conjure: Spirits, Art, and Materiality" is now online. Find it here.
Dr. Otero also was interviewed for the Latin@…
Human Rights On the Ground in New York City
ENGLISH 5193 | 1-credit field school | May 23-28, 2022
Sponsored by the Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme
Human Rights…
Dr. Elena Foulis, Clincal Associate Professor of Spanish and Associate Director of the Center for Ethnic Studies will be one of the speakers at TedXOhioState on 26 February 2022. For more…
Dr. Elena Foulis is performing in the upcoming CATCO production of Luchadora!
Performances take place February 17-March 6, 2022 at the Van Fleet Theatre in Columbus. More information,…
The Center for Folklore Studies joins the international folklore community in congratulating Professor Dorothy Noyes for being awarded the 2021 Kenneth Goldstein Award for Lifetime Academic…
As the semester winds down and the holiday season approaches, the open hours of the Center for Folklore Studies will be by appointment. Please email us at cfs@osu.edu if you would like to arrange…
Katherine Borland's essay, "Slow Activism and the Cultivation of Environmental Stewardship in Rural Spaces" was published in the November special issue of Ethnologia Fennica: Rethinking…
The Center for Folklore Studies is closed the week beginning October 18, 2021, for the American Folklore Society's annual conference.
"How does Marvel's Thor measure up to his Norse counterpart?"
If that question has been bugging you endlessly, ponder no more, because that's the title of a recent article published on…
The CFS is OPEN. We encourage students, faculty, friends, and the general public to drop in, say hello and use our space for study, meetings, archive access, and library consultation. Here are the…
Profe Elena Foulis has been appointed the Associate Director of the Center for Ethnic Studies.
Dr. Elena Foulis is a student-centered educator with over 15 years of…
We are delighted to announce that Dr. Rachel Hopkin will join the staff at the Center for Folklore Studies and the Humanities Institute as our GAH DT Post Doc for 2021-2022…
Congratulations to Center for Folklore Studies faculty, staff, students, and alumni who contributed to Dr. Tim Lloyd's (also an alum!) recent publication, What Folklorists Do:…
Jasmine Stork defended her excellent dissertation, "Asexuality in Avengers Fanfiction: A Mixed-Methods Folklore Study" on Friday, July 16. This innovative study uses a folklore…
If Eastern Kentucky wants control of how the region is portrayed to the world, what should that new narrative say about people, culture and economy? For ideas we turn to Ohio State University…
We wish to extend hearty congratulations to Jordan Lovejoy for a stellar defense of her dissertation: Beyond the Flood: Environmental Memory, Precarity, and Creativity in Imagining Appalachia…
Congratulations to Dr. Wenyuan Shao, who has just defended her dissertation, Unheard Voices and Alternative Pasts: Deciphering Chronicles of Southwest Yi and Its Layered Ranges of…
CFS Director Katey Borland gave the opening keynote address at the 15th SIEF (International Society for Ethnology and Folklore) Congress, “Breaking the Rules? Power, Participation, Transgression,”…
Congratulations to alumna, Dr. Sheila Bock (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), who received the Department in Honors Teaching Award from the Honors College.
[pdf] - Some links on this…
The University of Washington Press has recently announced that The Nuosu Book of Origins: A Creation Epic from Southwest China (2019) by Mark Bender, Aku Wuwu, and Jjivot Zopqu, has just…
Congratulations to Katherine Borland, who has just won the Council of Graduate Students' James M. Siddens Award for Distinguished Faculty Advising! The Siddens Award was created by CGS to…
Congratulations to the awardees of the 2021 Folklore Student Association Covid Relief Scholarship! The one-time $400 scholarship is designed to support students who consider the discipline of…
Dorothy Noyes was awarded the honorific title of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor. The Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professorship is an honorific title. This award…
Congratulations to Lydia Smith (Art), who was awarded a Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme Graduate Team Fellowship for the 2021-2022 academic year! This program brings…
On April 12-16, 2021 at The Ohio State University, two faculty members from the Department of Sociology (Victor Espinosa and Danielle Schoon) co-organized a virtual symposium, Bringing the Border…
Congratulations to Sarah Craycraft and her collaborators, Elena Stoycheva and Sonya Pencheva, who were awarded a Fulbright alumni grant to continue working on a collaborative…
Bobby Dahlberg-Sears will be performing dissertation fieldwork as a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Comparative Culture at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan beginning in June…
Congratulations to Jacob Kopcienski (Music), who was awarded a Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme Graduate Team Fellowship for the 2021-2022 academic year! This program…
Congratulations to Sarah Craycraft (Comparative Studies) who was awarded a Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme Graduate Team Fellowship for the 2021-2022 academic year! This…
Jasmine Stork has been awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Poland for 2021-2022. She will be teaching at the University of Opole in southern Poland. Opole is one…
Jordan Lovejoy (English) was selected as one of four OSU Arts and Sciences PhD students to proceed to the national ACLS Emerging Voices Postdoctoral Fellowship competition…
Dr. Sophia Enriquez (Ethnomusicology) has accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Music at Duke University, where she will also teach in the program for Latinx Studies in…
Amelia Mathews-Pett, ABD, passed her candidacy exams with sprightly elegance. Her committee consisted of Angus Fletcher, Jared Gardner, Merrill Kaplan, and Dorry Noyes as chair. She now moves…
S.C.O.P.E. (Student Community Of Progressive Empowerment) would like to cordially invite Undocumented Graduates and Allies to a Zoom Ceremony to acknowledge the accomplishments of Undocumented…
Dr. Amy Shuman moderated Bodies in Public Space | Bridging Distance in Arts and Humanities Methods and Practices for the Global Arts & Humanities Discovery Theme. Drs…
CFS Public Folklorist Dr. Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth gave a talk entitled "Community Ethnography and Sustainable Engagement: Case Studies from Appalachia" at the Nanyang…
Check out Jacob Kopcienski's (Musicology) article, "5 Questions to Elizabeth A. Baker about retrospectiveDisconnect" on I Care If You Listen. Learn more about Jacob's…
Kletchka, D. C. (2021). The epistemology of the basement: A queer theoretical reading of the institutional positionality of art museum educators. Museum Management &…
Dr. Sabra Webber (Professor Emerita) has published three essay blog posts about folklorist Alan Jabbour's family immigration saga for the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora…
Katherine Borland and Stephanie Aubry have secured a GAH+DT grant for a Border Issues and Activism Field School. The four day field school will visit sites of…
Congratulations to Dr. Dorothy Noyes, who was awarded the 2021 University Distinguished Scholar Award!
Dorothy Noyes, professor of English, comparative studies and…
Covid Conversations: Life in a Time of Corona, the Center for Folklore Studies podcast produced in collaboration with Ohio Humanities by Dr. Rachel Hopkin and supported by the Global Arts…
Dr. Cassie Rosita Patterson has been promoted to Associate Director (formerly she was Assistant Director) of the Center for Folklore Studies effective Feb 1, 2021. Congrats, Dr…
Fieldwork & Ethnography Panel presenters, Sarah Craycraft, Jordan Lovejoy, and Syndey Varajon created the Tried and True Advice from the Field…
In “Woke Pedagogies: An Arts & Sciences Approach to Excellence in Teaching” podcast, hosts Elena Foulis and David Staley discuss challenges within higher ed, giving…
Congratulations to Dr. Elena Foulis, whose article "Latin@s en la Fe: Gender, Solidarity, and the Common Good Among Latin@ Christians in Ohio" was published in the Journal of Hispanic / Latino…
Episode 4: Two world-class musicians are featured from two of the world’s greatest orchestras.
Mark Kosower is Principal Cello with the Cleveland Orchestra. He has been…
The Center for Folklore Studies mourns the loss of Dean "Pappaw" Bradbury, a friend of the Ohio Field School program.
Earl Dean Bradbury, beloved husband of the late Velma…
Professor Jared Gardner, the Joseph V. Denney Designated Professor of English and the director of the Popular Culture Studies program, has been named director of the Humanities…
The Center for Folklore Studies mourns the loss of David Brose, 1951-2021 to cancer. David was a Columbus, Ohio, native. After an early introduction to American traditional music,…
The Center for Folklore Studies has received a $25,000 Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme (GAHDT) Centers Grant, for its project: “Revisioning Folklore Studies in the Academy and the…
Alumna Dr. Elo-Hanna Seljamaa will give the plenary address at a Zoom conference on socialist/Soviet-era folkloristics from the University of Latvia.
Register here.
A…
Warmest congratulations to Mariah Marsden, whose sprightly oral defense capped her passing of her qualifying exams. Mariah’s committee consisted of Drs. Katey Borland, Dorry Noyes…
The Center for Folklore Studies mourns the passing of Dr. Jean (Mayo) MacLaughlin on October 27, 2020. Trained at the Folklore Institute at Indiana University (MA 1970, PhD 1977), Jean joined the…
Congratulations to Drs. Katherine Borland and Amy Shuman, who published a chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Counter-Narratives.
Borland, Katherine and Amy Shuman. 2020. …
The Ohio Latino Affairs Commission Board recently elected its new leaders for the 44th board, including two representatives from The Ohio State University. Congratulations to …
Congratulations to Dr. Martha Sims, who successfully defended her dissertation, “Illness Tattoos: A Study of Embodied Traditions and Narratives.” Her committee included Drs. Amy Shuman …
During the Spring 2020 Ohio Field School, Lydia Smith and Jacob Kopcienski worked to document the cemetery in Rendville OH, a progressive and historically…
2020 Ohio Field Schooler, Evan DeCarlo, published "Placemaking and Blue Blazes: The Ohio Field School Comes to the BTA" for the summer issue of Trailblazer, the quarterly…
Alex, Stacey and Elena Foulis. "Be the Street: The Performative and Transformative Possibilities of Oral History." US Latina & Latino Oral History Journal, vol. 4, 2020,…
Check out folklore course offerings for spring 2021!
Some highlights for SP21 Graduate Courses include:
International Studies 4195: Selected…
Have you listened to the New Books in Folklore podcast? Alumni, Dr. Timothy Thurston and Dr. Rachel Hopkin are hosts of the podcast and were recently joined by …
Folkwise is Youtube channel created by a group of folklorists to explore the ways folklore connects to their personal and academic interests. The main hosts are spread out across…
The Center for the Study of Religion and the Center for Folklore Studies invite interested faculty and graduate students to join our 2020/2021 working group on Religion, Health, and Healing…
PhD Candidate Sarah Craycraft co-curated a photographic exhibit (along with Elena Stoycheva) as part of her participation in a three-week artist's residency in Deleyna, Bulgaria…
2013-2018 Archival Assistant Annie Craycraft is pursuing an MLIS at the University of Iowa. Annie shares, "working in the CFS archives is the entire reason I chose to pursue a…
Congratulations to PhD Candidate, Jordan Lovejoy (English), who was featured in a live Q&A session on 100 Days in Appalachia’s Instagram! Jordan fielded the age old question, “so,…
2019-2020 Archival Intern Benjamin Beachy was accepted into the MLIS program at Kent State University and has started his first semester. Beachy shares, "this fall semester is…
Congratulations to Drs. Borland, Patterson, and Waugh-Quasebarth on their recent publication about the Ohio Field School in the Journal of Folklore and Education's special issue on…
Congratulations to CFS Alumna, Dr. Rosemary Hathaway (English Department at West Virginia University), who recently published her book, Mountaineers Are Always Free: Heritage,…
Episode #1 of the CFS’s new podcast, Covid Conversations: Life in a Time of Corona, is LIVE! It features two wordsmiths and artists - Omope Daboiku who…
Congratulations to alumna, Dr. Nancy Yan, and OSU-IU Student Conference keynote speaker, Dr. Rachel Gonzàlez, on their recent podcast episode for New Books in Folklore! “In this podcast, we talk…
Greetings Folklorists and Allies,
It is my pleasure to welcome you back to campus (sort of) for what will certainly be an unusual year. The volatility of the virus as well as the…
During this peculiar summer of 2020, Ehsan Estiri finished and defended his Dissertation, Talking Back to America: Discursive Processes in Iranian Angelino Public Events (see below for…
Congratulations to Dr. Tessa Jacobs, who has just defended her timely dissertation, _Fire on Mountain Drive: Community Dynamics and Personal Narrative in a Wildfire-Prone Landscape_…
Congratulations to Dr. Danielle Schoon (Near Eastern Languages and Cultures) who, along with Harmony Bench (Dance), Yana Hashamova (Slavic), and Hannah Kosstrin (Dance), received…
We are delighted to announce that Nathan Young has successfully defended his dissertation, entitled Modernity’s Other: Nostalgia for Village Life in Turkey, an exploration of the many…
Congratulations to Dr. Ziying You, CFS alumna and Visiting Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies and East Asian Studies at College of Wooster, who served as guest editor for the special issue of …
Congratulations to Dr. Joe Campbell, Dr. Cassie Rosita Patterson, and Dr. Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth, all members of the OSU Advisory Committee for the Ohio Field…
Congratulations to CFS core faculty member, Dr. Gabriella Modan who, along with her collaborators, Dr. Seuli Bose Brill (General Internal Medicine) and Nathan Richards (PhD…
Congratulations to Associated Faculty member, Dr. Isaac Weiner, whose American Religious Sounds Project received funding from the Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Themes.
What does…
Drs. Glenn Martinez and Elena Foulis, along with collaborators, Dr. Fitzgerald, and Grad student Palo Pinillos Chavez received the The Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme grant ($18,000) for…
The Rendville Historical Preservation Society and the Center for Folklore Studies invite CFS affiliated students, faculty, and staff to explore voices of emancipation in Rendville Cemetery between…
Congratulations to Dr. Katherine Borland and Dr. Rachel Hopkin, who received a $25,000 grant from the Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme for Covid Conversations: Life…
Congratulations to PhD Candidate, Jordan Lovejoy, whose chapter, "Redneck Memes as an Appalachian Reclamation of Vernacular Authority, Language, and Identity," was recently…
Dr. Dorothy Noyes was recently featured on the Department of English's Research Spotlight. In her interview, she discusses some of her current projects, including…
The winner of this year's Human Rights Award for the best graduate academic paper or multi-modal project related to the discourses of human rights is Jordan Woodward (Department…
Please extend your congratulations to Kati Fitzgerald (Department of Comparative Studies) who just successfully defended her brilliant dissertation, "No Pure Lands: The…
Congratulations to Dr. Afsane Rezaei (Department of Comparative Studies), who defended a fine dissertation in a lively discussion. Entitled “Agency Between Narratives: Women,…
Dr. Isaac Weiner, one of our Affiliates in the Department of Comparative Studies and Co-Director fo the American Religious Sounds Project, has shared this call:
Call For Sounds!
Caroline Toy successfully defended her dissertation, "Wizarding Shrines and Police Box Cathedrals: Re-envisioning Religiosity through Fan and Media Pilgrimages," on Friday March 20th. An…
Congratulations to Dr. Elena Foulis who has been named a recipient of the Community Engagement Scholar Award! This honor is a part of the OSU 2020 University Outreach and Engagement Awards.
Dear OSU Folklorists,
While you are likely coordinating directly with your respective departments and mentors about adjustments related to the Covid-19 pandemic, CFS leadership and staff are…
Please extend warmest congratulations to Afsane Rezaei, who will be headed to Utah State University’s Department of English this fall as Assistant Professor of Folklore and…
It is Ohio Habla’s 100th episode!! Dr. Elena Foulis started Ohio Habla November 2017 and today she published the podcast’s 100th episode.
What better way to celebrate than…
Jasmine Stork (PhD Candidate, Comparative Studies) was hired in January as the new Program Coordinator for the Undergraduate Fellowship Office in Honors & Scholars at OSU. She has…
Postdoc Moriah Flagler will continue on for a third year thanks to a $100,000 Community Engagement Grant from the Global Arts + Humanities discovery theme. In 2020-2021, Flagler…
Our very own Sydney Varajon (PhD candidate) was spotted in the Hallmark Channel film Christmas at Dollywood which aired in December. For Sydney it was fieldwork, of…
Check out CFS Director Dr. Katey Borland’s recent article on the Be The Street project in the Folklore Fellows News. In "Beyond Content Analysis: Narratives of Belonging…
Alumna, Dr. Kate Parker Horigan, was the Featured Folklorist on the American Folklore Society website this December. Check out her interview on the AFS website!
Dr. Mark Bender, chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, announced the publication of Meige, the translation of a version of a folk epic of the…
Sarah Craycraft will be featured in the upcoming Winter 2019 issue of OSU's alumni magazine. The story covers her participation in a Bulgaria-based program called Residencia Baba…
Congratualtions to Rachel Hopkin, who successfully defended her dissertation! Her committee included Amy Shuman, Advisor, Dorry Noyes, Katey Borland, and Ana Cara (from Oberlin College). The…
Congratulations to Dr. Christofer Johnson, who ably defended his dissertation, Fishing in Uncertain Waters: Resilience and Cultural Change in a North Atlantic Community. Chris and Miranda…
During the last Annual Meeting of the American Folklore Society in Baltimore, our colleague Amy Shuman was awarded the Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award. This award has been bestowed semi…
Folklore alumni, faculty and staff contributed to the edited collection, The Folklorist in the Marketplace: Conversations at the Crossroads of Vernacular Culture and Economics, just out…