It is with great sadness that we report that Peter Rollins, co-founder of the Southwest/Texas Popular/American Culture Association, passed away on Monday, March 23. Peter was a pioneer in the popular culture movement and one of the forces behind the continued momentum of our organization, and his enthusiasm and support will be greatly missed. His obituary is available at

http://www.stwnewspress.com/obituaries/peter-c-rollins-ph-d/article_21bc07ee-d2a0-11e4-bc43-3f9e3a5dc6fe.html.

We will look forward to celebrating his legacy in Albuquerque next February.

The Southwest Popular/American Culture Association is honored to announce the 2015 Peter C. Rollins Book Award winners. Each year the Rollins award recognizes outstanding scholarship in three categories:

• Film/Television
• Popular Culture
• Sequential Art/Comics and Animation Studies (this topic area may vary from year to year, as it recognizes outstanding scholarship in a trending topic in popular culture studies)

These categories are chosen to balance our commitments to honoring our past and recognizing leaders in future scholarship. 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.

• In the category of Film and Television, the winning volume is Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader edited by Giorgio Bertellini, published in 2013 by John Libbey Publishing.
• In the category of Popular Culture, the winning book is Packaged Pleasures: How Technology & Marketing Revolutionized Desire by Gary S. Cross and Robert N. Proctor, published in 2014 by the University of Chicago Press.
• In the category of Sequential Art/Comics and Animation Studies, the winning volume is Wide Awake in Slumberland: Fantasy, Mass Culture, and Modernism in the Art of Winsor McCay by Katherine Roeder, published in 2014 by the University Press of Mississippi.

The Southwest Popular and American Culture Association is grateful to our panel of judges, Dr. Hugh Foley, Dr. Robert G. Weiner, and Dr. Alison Macor, for their thoughtful evaluation of the many excellent volumes submitted for consideration.

We will begin accepting submissions for the 2016 Rollins book award in September 2015.

Learn more about past award winners at our Rollins Book Award page: http://southwestpca.org/conference/rollins-book-award/

The Southwest Popular/American Culture Association (SWPACA) is pleased to announce that the online application for the Michael K. Schoenecke Leadership Institute is now open. We will be accepting applications from October 1, 2014 through December 1, 2014, and  look forward to an excellent inaugural class of Institute Fellows.

For information on the Institute, please visit the Michael K. Schoenecke Leadership Institute page now, then apply via the online application.

The SWPACA Executive Team and the Peter C. Rollins Book Award judging panel are pleased to announce that the Rollins Book Award has been expanded to recognize outstanding scholarship in multiple areas of popular and American culture.

Traditionally, the Rollins Book Award has recognized manuscript-length work in the area of Film/Television Studies. The Rollins Award will continue to do so, with the annual recipient in that category being invited to present the Keynote address at the SWPACA Awards Reception the following year. In addition, the Rollins Book Award committee will recognize one to three volumes/year in the category of general popular culture and a “rolling” category identified each year based on trends in popular and/or American cultural studies.

For 2014, the Peter C. Rollins book award winners are:

• Film/Television and History: Kimberley Monteyne, Hip Hop on Film: Performance Culture, Urban Space, and Genre Transformation in the 1980s (University Press of Mississippi)
• Popular Culture: Justin S. Vaughn and Lilly J. Goren, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky)
• Sequential Art/Comics and Animation Studies: Philip Nel, Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature (University Press of Mississippi)

Each year the Rollins Award Committee welcomes submissions of book-length work (single/multiple author or edited collection) published within the previous two calendar years. Books published in 2012 or 2013 may be submitted for consideration.

For full submission guidelines, please see visit the Rollins Keynote Speaker Page.

Download PDF of Cover/Table of Contents Postcard

We are pleased to announce that Classics and Contemporary Popular Culture, Volume 1, Issue 1 of Dialogue the Interdisciplinary Journal Popular Culture and Pedagogy  is now live. Head on over to http://journaldialogue.org and have a look!

The Southwest Popular/American Culture Association (SWPACA) is pleased to announce its 35th annual conference will be held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, February 19-22, 2014. This year marks several areas of growth for the Association:

• The association name will change, effective May 2013, from the “Southwest/Texas Popular and American Culture Association” to the “Southwest Popular/American Culture Association”
• The SWPACA web site has been updated and moved to its new home at www.southwestpca.org – be sure to check back regularly for news and info!
• The SWPACA is pleased to announce the launch of Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy.  Please visit www.journaldialogue.org for more information.
• • The SWPACA’s flagship award, the Peter C. Rollins Book Award, established a new standard in 2013, recognizing three outstanding volumes in separate areas of popular and American culture:
  • Traditional Film/Television Studies
  • Popular Culture Studies
  • Sequential Art/Comics and Animation Studies

It is our goal to attract a new group of authors with these new subject categories in honoring the legacy of Peter C. Rollins the founder of our organization.