Learning with the Lights Off

A vastly influential form of filmmaking seen by millions of people, educational films provide a catalog of twentieth century preoccupations and values. As a medium of instruction and guidance, they held a powerful cultural position, producing knowledge both inside and outside the classroom. This is the first collection of essays to address this vital phenomenon. The book provides an ambitious overview of educational film practices, while each essay analyzes a crucial aspect of educational film history, ranging from case studies of films and filmmakers to broader generic and historical assessments. Offering links to many of the films, Learning With the Lights Off provides readers the context and access needed to develop a sophisticated understanding of, and a new appreciation for, a much overlooked film legacy.

Devin Orgeron is Associate Professor at North Carolina State University and co-editor of The Moving Image, the journal of the Association for Moving Image Archivists. He is the author of Road Movies.

Marsha Orgeron is Associate Professor of Film Studies at North Carolina State University and co-editor of The Moving Image, the journal of Association for Moving Image Archivists. She is the author of Hollywood Ambitions: Celebrity in the Movie Age.

Dan Streible is Associate Professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts / Department of Cinema Studies, where he is also associate director of the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. He directs the Orphan Film Project and its biennial symposium. He is the author of Fight Pictures: A History of Boxing and Early Cinema (2008) and, with Douglas Kellner, Emile de Antonio: A Reader (2000). Streible and producers Walter Forsberg, Jonah Volk, and Alice Moscoso are releasing the two-DVD set Orphans in Space: Forgotten Films of Final Frontier (2012).