54/Mannered Cinema / Mobile Theatersthese courses. Throughout the late 1920s and 1930s, both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the MPPDA actively corresponded with universities such as Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Southern California (USC) about setting up m courses.66 Other schools worked in tandem with groups operating outside of the industry in order to generate resourcesaterial and intellectual. Frederic Thrasher taught in the School of Education, New York University (NYU), and worked in conjunction with the National Board of Review. Film courses and screenings listed in the course catalogues at the New School for Social Research were linked to the Workers Film and Photo League and to Harry Potamkin, Jay Leyda, Irving Lerner, and also to m critics such as Stanley Kaufman.67 Just before his death, Potamkin announced the formation of the league own m school.68 Many of these courses demonstrate a surprising catholicity in their approach to what constituted the study of cinema, indicative of a ld still very much in gestation. Thrasher course at NYU serves as a case in point. His syllabus contained a range of topics, including newsreels, experimental ms, feature ms, history, auteur studies (then known as uthor�studies), orals and movies,�censorship, motion picture art, exhibition, motion pictures and psychiatry, medical and clinical ms, the religious m, and community and personal use of motion pictures.69 Each week would effectively be taught by an expert in the ld, assembled from educational institutions, the industry, or even hobbyists.70 The study of m had not yet hardened within now-familiar disciplinary structures; it had not yet been clearly deed as the study of a e art or a mass medium or a popular entertainment. Indeed, it was all of these at once. The course at USC deserves special mention because it involves the activities of AMPAS, another important industry association during these years. Conceived as a supplement to the activities of MPPDA and formed at what is generally understood to be the peak of the silent era and the beginning of the transition to sound m, AMPAS announced its goals: to harmonize internal and external industry relations and to generally advance the status of motion pictures in America. Membership in AMPAS was invitational and honorary, encompassing e distinct groups: producers, directors, actors, writers, and technicians. The organization functions grew to include the well-known awards program, as well as educational programs, a library for members, several failed attempts at launching a magazine, and collaborations with educational institutions to foster m study. AMPAS also held screenings for its members, specially naming the best European ms, experimental ms, educational and science ms, as well as
