The Whatley Award is given each year at the conference in memory of George Whatley, a founder and early president of the Popular Culture Association in the South. The editor and editorial board of Studies in Popular Culture annually recognize the article published in the journal’s previous two issues that, in their view, best represents the scholarly values Professor Whatley sought for the organization and the study of popular culture.
The 2024 Whatley Award goes to:
Ryan Hibbett
Songs, Books, and Presidents: Cultural Capital in the Trump Era.
Previous Winners:
2023
Steven Wandler
The Green Soul of the Planet’s Vegetation’: Seeing Through the Eyes of Nature in Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing
2022
Claire Christof
Joan Didion, California, and the “Impersonally Personal”
2021
Jonathan Bassett and Angela Tenga
Spies Like Us: Ideology and Futility in the FX Television Series The Americans