Honors Program
Honors in English
Date of Award
5-2020
Thesis Professor(s)
Dr. Kevin O'Donnell
Thesis Professor Department
<--College of Arts and Sciences-->
Thesis Reader(s)
Dr. Rebecca Adkins Fletcher
Abstract
In this essay, I investigate how the historic and current economic structures operating in Appalachia from the 1920s to the 2010s are represented in two contemporary Southern Appalachian novels – Serena (2008) by Ron Rash and Flight Behavior (2012) by Barbara Kingsolver. Through the lens of postcolonial theory, I show how Serena represents Appalachia as functioning under the colonial model outlined by Robert Blauner and Helen Mathews Lewis in 1978. Then, still under the theory of postcolonialism, I explore how Kingsolver’s work depicts regional identity in response to a post-colonial environment and the ever-expanding global economy.
Publisher
East Tennessee State University
Document Type
Honors Thesis - Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Herrell, Jasmyn, "Colonialism and Globalism in Two Contemporary Southern Appalachian Novels - Serena (2008) by Ron Rash, and Flight Behavior (2012) by Barbara Kingsolver" (2020). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 573. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/573
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.
Included in
American Literature Commons, Appalachian Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons