The evolution of American cultural history pivots on those moments,
large and small, where definitions break down, where meaning is
contested, and a new kind of understanding is created in the
bargain. We would be hard pressed to call that evolution progress,
as new situational realities are defined by their newness and the
situations that create them, but they breed difference,
nonetheless, and create a new synthesis from the rubble. Those
situational realities are created by shifts in meaning, by the
cross-currents of language, which ultimately drive the system not
forward, perhaps, but into a new state of being, for better or
worse, depending on one s own needs or beliefs.
"The Devil s Messages" is a collection of essays that examines
instances of definitional difference, of contested meaning. The
essays move chronologically, but they are by no means
comprehensive. The evolution of American history tracks along
myriad similar disputes. Instead, each essay is exemplary of
historical points where disagreements over language create
contested space. Some of those spaces are large Civil Rights,
Christianity, the Cold War. Others are smaller, more limited
examples of similar problems.
"The Devil s Messages" chronicles an art controversy in the
mid-century South, the linguistic nomenclature that gave the
country godless communism, and the fight to remove prayer from
public schools. It finds the devil in the films of Otto Preminger
and Woody Allen and in the details of Ira Levin novels and disco,
remembering throughout that historians themselves can be his most
effective advocate when dealing with the rest of the liberal arts.
Thomas Aiello is an assistant professor of history and African
American studies at Valdosta State University. He is the editor of
"Dan Burley s Jive" (Northern Illinois University Press, 2009) and
"Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess" (UL Press, 2010), and
the author of "Bayou Classic: The Grambling-Southern Football
Rivalry" (LSU Press, 2010) and "The Kings of Casino Park: Race and
Race Baseball in the Lost Season of 1932" (University of Alabama
Press, 2011). He has published dozens of articles on American
history, philosophy, religion, linguistics, and culture.
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