A WKU professor will appear in a PBS documentary on Sept. 10 to speak about the cultural aspects of the Hatfield and McCoy feud. 

Anthony Harkins, an associate professor in the department of history at WKU, will appear in the PBS documentary The Feud as a historical consultant on Sept. 10, 2019. Harkins will appear both by voice and by video in the documentary as a scholar talking about the cultural aspects of the Hatfield and McCoy feud. 

“I was reached out to by the producers of this documentary and I served as a historical consultant for their project and was interviewed by them in February, in Lexington,” Harkins said.

His commentary in The Feud was mostly based on his earlier book, “Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon,” published by Oxford University Press in August 2005.

“It looked at the image of the hillbilly and in part looked at the Hatfield and McCoy feud as a component of that, much less looking at the events themselves and how they were used to define the region and the people,” Harkins explained. 

Harkins described his experience with the documentary as very professional and stated PBS has done a number of these documentaries in the past.

News reporter Abbey Nutter can be reached at 270-745-6011 and [email protected] her on Twitter at @abbeynutter.