Dr. Thomas Aiello

Teaching Fields: African American History to 1865; African American History since 1865; American Cultural and Intellectual History; Animal Studies; Vegan Studies

Thomas Aiello is a professor of history, Africana studies, and anthrozoology. He received his first PhD from the University of Arkansas in 2007 and his second from the University of Exeter in 2021. The bulk of his courses relate to all measures of African American history, from early slavery to Black Power, and all aspects of animal studies. His research interests are broader, covering twentieth century United States cultural and intellectual history, twentieth century African American cultural and intellectual history in a variety of different settings, and animal studies, critical animal studies, and anthrozoology. You can learn more at www.thomasaiellobooks.com. He is the author of:

17. Practical Radicalism and the Great Migration: A Cultural Geography of the Scott Newspaper Syndicate (Athens: University of Georgia Press, forthcoming).

16. The Art of Deliberate Disunity: The Life and Times of Louis E. Lomax (Durham: Duke University Press, 2021).

15. Brath, Cecil Elombe. Color Us Cullud! The American Negro Leadership Official Coloring Book, editor and annotator (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2021).

14. The Trouble In Room 519: The Life and Times of Gordon Malherbe Hillman, Author and Murderer; Money, Matricide, and Marginal Fiction in the Early Twentieth Century (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2021).

13. Hoops: A Cultural History of Basketball in America (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2022).

12. The Grapevine of the Black South: The Scott Newspaper Syndicate in the Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018).

11. Dixieball: Race and Professional Basketball in the Deep South, 1947-1979 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2019).

10. New Orleans Sports: Playing Hard In the Big Easy (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2019).

9. The Battle for the Souls of Black Folk: W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, and the Debate That Shaped the Course of Civil Rights (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2016).

8. Jim Crow’s Last Stand: Nonunanimous Criminal Jury Verdicts In Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2015).

7. Model Airplanes Are Decadent and Depraved: The Glue-Sniffing Epidemic of the 1960s (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2015).

6. Kerlin, Robert T. The Voice of the Negro (1919), editor (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2013).

5. The Devil’s Messages: Language and Contested Space in Twentieth-Century America (San Diego, CA: Cognella, 2013).

4. The Kings of Casino Park: Race and Race Baseball In the Lost Season of 1932, Monroe, LA(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2011).

3. Lawson, David. Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess, editor (Lafayette, LA: University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press, 2010).

2. Bayou Classic: The Grambling-Southern Football Rivalry (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010).

1. Burley, Dan. Dan Burley’s Jive, editor (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2009).

He is also the author of more than fifty peer reviewed articles on American history, anthrozoology, critical animal studies, philosophy, religion, linguistics, and culture, copies of which are available at www.thomasaiellobooks.com.