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.

View a list of our past Rollins winners here.

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

      • We are not accepting e-books at this time.
      • Deadline for submissions: Titles must be mailed by November 15, 2024.

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

2014: Film/Television

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

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

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