Rollins applications for the 2025 SWPACA conference are now being accepted through November 15.
The Peter C. Rollins Book Award recognizes contributions to the study of popular and/or American culture and, in particular, works analyzing cultural and historical representations in film, television, and/or other visual media. Volumes receiving this award are distinguished by their methodology and research; monographs, reference works, and anthologies are all eligible. We invite publishers, authors, and editors to submit any appropriate publications of exceptional quality published in the current or previous calendar year (for example, for 2025, books published in 2024 or 2023 are eligible).
Through this award, we honor Peter C. Rollins, for whom the prize is named, and his contributions to the field of film and history and his service to the Southwest Popular and American Culture Association. At the same time, we recognize leaders of emergent trends and innovative scholarship in the fields of popular and American culture.
See below for a list of previous Rollins winners. For those interested in submitting titles for the 2025 award, view the submission guidelines here. All Rollins-related inquiries should be directed to Kathleen Lacey, SWPACA’s Area Chair, Professional Development, & Awards Coordinator, at klacey@southwestpca.org.
2024 Rollins Book Award Winner
The Southwest Popular/American Culture Association is honored to present John A. Lent with the 2024 Peter C. Rollins Book Award for Asian Political Cartoons published in 2023 by the University Press of Mississippi.
The Southwest Popular and American Culture Association is grateful to our panel of judges–Dr. Hugh Foley, Dr. Rob Weiner, and Dr. Melissa Tackett-Gibson–for their thoughtful evaluation of the many excellent volumes submitted for consideration.
Rollins Award Submission Guidelines
- Monographs (single or multiple author), anthologies, and reference books published in the current or previous calendar year are eligible.
- More than one title per author may be submitted for consideration.
- More than one title per publisher may be submitted for consideration.
- Submissions must be in English; translations from another language of first publication are acceptable.
- Complete the online submission form linked below.
- Four copies of each title must be submitted to the following mailing address:
Kathleen Lacey, Department of English
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
201B Andrews Hall
624 N 14th St.
Lincoln, NE 68588-0333
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- We are not accepting e-books at this time.
- Deadline for submissions: Titles must be mailed by November 15, 2024.
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Award recipient(s) will be announced during the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Annual Conference, February 19-22, 2025, during the awards ceremony.
Direct all inquiries and other correspondence to Kathleen Lacey, SWPACA’s Area Chair, Awards, & Professional Development Coordinator, at klacey@southwestpca.org.
Past Rollins Winners
2023
Comic Book Women: Characters, Creators, and Culture in the Golden Age
by Peyton Brunet and Blair Davis
University of Texas Press, 2023
2022
Vitagraph: America’s First Great Motion Picture Studio
by Andrew A. Erish
The University Press of Kentucky, 2021
2021
Warhol
by Blake Gopnik
Ecco/HarperCollins Press, 2021
2020: Film/Television
The Brothers Mankiewicz: Hope, Heartbreak, and Hollywood Classics
by Sydney Ladensohn Stern
University of Mississippi Press, 2019
2019: Film/Television
MGM
by Tino Balio
Routledge, 2018
2018: Film/Television
Reinventing Hollywood: How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling
by David Bordwell
University of Chicago Press, 2017
2017: Film/Television
Our Gang: A Racial History of The Little Rascals
by Julia Lee
University of Minnesota Press, 2015
2016: Film/Television
Magical Musical Tour: Rock and Pop in Film Soundtracks
by K.J. Donnelly
Bloomsbury Academic, 2015
2016: Popular Culture
Amada’s Blessings from the Peyote Gardens of South Texas
by Stacy B. Schaefer
University of New Mexico Press, 2015
2016: Honorable Mention
Eilshemius: Peer of Poet-Painters
by Stefan Banz
JRP/Ringier, 2015
2015: Film/Television
Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader
by Giorgio Bertellini, ed.
John Libbey Publishing, 2013
2015: Popular Culture
Packaged Pleasures: How Technology and Marketing Revolutionized Desire
by Gary S. Cross & Robert N. Proctor
University of Chicago Press, 2014
2015: Sequential Art/Comics and Animation Studies
Wide Awake in Slumberland: Fantasy, Mass Culture, and Modernism in the Art of Winsor McCay
by Katherine Roeder
University Press of Mississippi, 2014
2014: Film/Television
Hip Hop on Film: Performance Culture, Urban Space, and Genre Transformation in the 1980s
by Kimberley Monteyne
University Press of Mississippi, 2013
2014: Popular Culture
Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics
by Justin S. Vaughn and Lilly J. Goren
University Press of Kentucky, 2012
2014: Sequential Art/Comics and Animation Studies
Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature
by Philip Nel
University Press of Mississippi, 2012
2013: Film/Television
Indie, Inc.: Miramax and the Transformation of Hollywood in the 1990s
by Alissa Perren
University of Texas Press, 2012
2013: Popular Culture
Steaming into a Victorian Future: A Steampunk Anthology
by Julie Anne Taddeo and Cynthia J. Miller
Scarecrow Press, 2012
2013: Sequential Art/Comics and Animation Studies
Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods
by Matthew J. Smith and Randy Duncan
Routledge, 2011
2012
Zaprudered: The Kennedy Assassination Film in Visual Culture
by Øyvind Vågnes
University of Texas Press, 2011
2011
Chainsaws, Slackers, and Spy Kids: 30 Years of Filmmaking in Austin, Texas
by Alison Macor
University of Texas Press, 2010
2010
A Comics Studies Reader
by Jeet Heer and Kent Worchester, eds.
University Press of Mississippi, 2009
2009
Black Space: Imagining Race in Science Fiction Film
by Adilifu Nama
University of Texas Press, 2008
2008
The Road Story and the Rebel: Moving Through Film, Fiction, and Television
by Katie Mills
Southern Illinois University Press, 2006
2007
Killing the Indian Maiden: Images of Native American Women in Film
by M. Elise Marubbio
University Press of Kentucky, 2006
2006
Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood
by Wheeler Winston Dixon
Southern Illinois University Press, 2005