“Politics, Tragedy, and Chicken Tenders” – Talk by Historian Bryant Simon

Bryant Simon, professor of history at Temple University, will give a talk, Politics, Tragedy, and Chicken Tenders, at noon on Thursday, March 28, in Karpen Hall Room 038. Free and open to everyone.

UNC Asheville’s Department of History provides this description. 

In this talk, award-winning historian Bryant Simon will examine the causes and consequences of North Carolina’s deadliest industrial accident from his book, The Hamlet Fire. Simon illustrates how cheap government, cheap labor, and cheap food have become the new American norm in the 1980s and essentially triggered tragedy in Hamlet, and how they remain the dominant ethos today in North Carolina and across the country.

Simon also is the author of A Fabric of Defeat: The Politics of South Carolina Millhands;
Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America; Everything but the Coffee: Learning About America from Starbucks; and most recently, The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives. Along with Jane Dailey and Glenda Gilmore, he co-edited the collection, Jumpin Jim Crow: Southern Politics from Civil War to Civil Rights.

His research and scholarship has earned awards and honors from the Fulbright Commission, von
Humboldt Foundation, the German Historical Institute, Urban History Association, Organization of American Historians, and the Smithsonian Institution. His work and popular commentary have been featured in the Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Christian Science Monitor, Raleigh News and Observer, theroot.com, and numerous other outlets.

Over last five years, Simon has lectured around the world and taught at the National University of Singapore, University of Tubingen, and University of Erfurt. In addition, he has served as a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians and last year, he was elected to the Society of American Historians.