NYU Professor Takes the Podium for Inaugural Academy Film Scholars Event

Beverly Hills, CA — To kick off a new lecture series celebrating the work of Academy Film Scholars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present Dana Polan, professor of cinema studies at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, in a discussion of his new book, Scenes of Instruction: The Beginnings of the U.S. Study of Film, on Tuesday, May 15, at 7:30 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Polan’s presentation will spotlight the Academy’s involvement in creating film appreciation curricula at the University of Southern California and Stanford University in the late 1920s.

Scenes of Instruction examines the social, cultural, practical and aesthetic approaches of university film programs from 1915 through the mid-1930s, as well as milestones in the development of film studies, including Terry Ramsaye’s lectures on cinema at the New School for Social Research in 1926 and Joseph Kennedy’s 1927 Harvard Business School courses on the film industry.

“The Academy has been instrumental in fostering high-level research by today’s film scholars. It has been particularly illuminating for me to examine the Academy’s early commitment to developing university film programs,” said Polan.

The Institutional Grants Committee of the Academy Foundation, which is the educational wing of the Academy, selected Polan as a grant recipient in 2002; this event will celebrate the completion of his work.

Established in 1999, the Academy Film Scholars program is designed to “stimulate and support the creation of new and significant works of film scholarship about aesthetic, cultural, educational, historical, theoretical or scientific aspects of theatrical motion pictures.” Film scholars receive $25,000 to research and produce new works of film scholarship, which can take the form of books, multimedia presentations, curatorial projects, DVD-ROMs or Internet sites.

For grant guidelines and information about the Academy Film Scholars program, visit http://www.oscars.org/grants/filmscholars.

Admission to the inaugural Academy Film Scholars presentation is free. To guarantee seating at this event, call (310) 247-3111. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. All seating is unreserved. The Linwood Dunn Theater is located at 1313 Vine Street in Hollywood. Free parking is available through the entrance on Homewood Avenue.