A few months ago, I saw a tweet that mentioned "dark academia." My first response was, "Huh?" After seeing in come up a few times, I looked it up again.
It turns out there is a whole
dark academia aesthetic. It became especially popular during COVID (maybe because students couldn't go to their campuses, so they missed the experience). This aesthetic involves clothing and fashion; music; art; and of course, books and movies.
Even though the term is fairly new, the concept of "dark academia" has been a part of fiction for a while. But the definitions can be amorphous. So some things are included that you might not classify that way. (I think that's a good thing because a definition that's too strict can exclude deserving books. But sometimes, I think "Aaaaaa!")
In fiction (and movies), "dark academia" is used to refer to
dark and creepy stories that involve a college campus or boarding school setting. But that description doesn't match all the examples. Also, some of the stories might involve a historical mystery rather than a campus.
One of the classic examples is Donna Tartt's
The Secret History.
People credit that book with creating the aesthetic. A lot of people interested in this aesthetic grew up reading Donna Tartt books. The term got popularized on Instagram in 2017.
Other examples include
Possession by A.S. Byatt;
If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio;
Brideshead Revisited;
Dead Poet's Society; some Wilkie Collins novels;
A Separate Peace by John Knowles; and so forth.
So what books do you recommend in this genre?
And what do you think of this classification? Is it helpful? Or can it be
?
And then, to confuse everything, there is a
"light academia" aesthetic as well (which was created on Tumblr in response to dark academia around 2019).
