Learning with the Lights Off: Educational Film in the United States

摘要

Recent studies of nonfiction film have moved beyond questions of objectivity and auteur-ship to examine the specific institutional uses and contexts in which such films were made. Learning with the Lights Off brings together film scholars, historians, and archivists to chart the growth of educational films in the United States from the early 1910s through the peak years of the 1950s and '60s. As this volume's twenty-two essays com-pellingly demonstrate, this hitherto underappreciated genre can yield considerable insights into how educators, foundations, corporations, municipal and state governments, and independent filmmakers articulated a utilitarian role for cinema both as a strategy for social legitimization and a means of revolutionizing pedagogical practices.