East Tennessee State University Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University Undergraduate Honors Theses Student Works 5-2020 Colonialism and Globalism in Two Contemporary Southern Appalachian Novels - Serena (2008) by Ron Rash, and Flight Behavior (2012) by Barbara Kingsolver Jasmyn Herrell Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.etsu.edu/honors Part of the American Literature Commons, Appalachian Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, and the Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons 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 This Honors Thesis - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Works at Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Colonialism and Globalism in Two Contemporary Southern Appalachian Novels – Serena (2008) by Ron Rash, and Flight Behavior (2012) by Barbara Kingsolver By Jasmyn Herrell Spring 2020 Mentor: Dr. Kevin O’Donnell Second Reader: 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.