The Journal of Appalachian Studies supersedes earlier publications of the Appalachian Studies Association (ASA), including Proceedings and the Journal of the Appalachian Studies Association (JASA).
Proceedings was the first publication of the Appalachian Studies Conference, and included collections of papers presented at the annual conferences. In 1989, the name was changed to the JASA, and the journal began publishing articles, studies, and book reviews in addition to conference papers. The name was again changed to the Journal of Appalachian Studies in the early 1990s when the ASA office relocated to the campus of West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. The current headquarters has been managing the publication of the journal since 2001, when the ASA relocated to Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia.