Dark Academia: Is It Really That Serious?

By Yasmin Hadizad

If you’ve ever in your life had Pinterest, or been on the most obnoxious side of TikTok, you probably have a working understanding of Dark Academia, at least as an aesthetic: dark towers, deep brown vintage sweaters and floor-length coats, an amber flame flickering on an old candle sitting on a mahogany desk strewn with inkwell pens, parchment, a wax-sealed letter or two, and, of course, a stack of leather-bound books. 

The point is, it rests in the mind as a pretty clear image, a feel, a vibe. But is that all there is?

See, when it comes to literature, the picture of what constitutes “dark academia” begins to blur. BookTokers, Tubers, and Grammers (as well as professional “literaries” on Substack), since time immemorial, have debated what truly makes a work of fiction dark academic. Examples of the genre range from fun fantasy series with a found family, monsters, and a little death to eloquent commentaries on the many holes in academia including careful and painfully dense dissections of the issues that spring from academic elitism. 

My question is simple. My question is short. My question will be answered by briefly analyzing every book generally considered “dark academia” that I happen to have read since I was twelve. My question is this:

What makes a book Dark Academic?

Magic and Vibes: Harry Potter by Joanne Rowling, The Scholomance Trilogy by Naomi Novik

The less pretentious of the two sides of our debate argues for the inclusion of the more magical strain of “dark academic” literature. Often fantastical stories set in some kind of secondary school, touched by wizardry, spells, and a dash of darkness, these stories generally follow a group of teens or adolescents as they grapple with great fantastical dangers—ghosts, evil wizards, monsters, bad teachers, etcetera. In the process, these stories often craft slow-burning romances, interpersonal conflicts, and, most importantly, tear-jerking found families. 

What I might say classifies these books as “dark academia” is:

1. “dark” subject matter, say, death by monster or magical villain.

2. the presence of a “school” setting and mention of the trials of academia, ranging from bad teachers to intense exams 

The question that many anti-Magic-and-Vibes internet scholars ask is whether these books “count” as dark academia, if they don’t focus very much, if at all, on exploring issues centered on academia. 

Joanne Rowling’s Harry Potter, arguably (!) the “dark academic” series that began it all, doesn’t quite embark on any serious journey into the depths of the issues surrounding academia. The only thing I argue even comes close is the partial exploration of the impact of government propaganda on academic institutions with the entrance of Umbridge in The Order of the Phoenix. 

The sole aspect of the series that really ties it to the idea of dark academia is, well, the Vibe^TM. The tall, near-black towers of Hogwarts; the dim-lit eeriness of Snape’s potion classes or the Slytherin chambers, the mystique of ever-shifting stairs, talking paintings, hidden rooms, and old secrets; a mug of Butterbeer steaming in the hand of a student in their fresh-pressed black uniform, tie, and/or striped scarf; Hermione’s ever-growing stack of leather-bound books for her many extracurriculars—and the always looming possibility of death (especially in later books, when the stakes are raised). 

The question then is whether a Vibe is enough to cement a series into the dark academia genre—or whether that just makes it fantasy. The Scholomance Trilogy by Naomi Novik does a decent job of further muddying these waters. This fantasy series, often compared to Harry Potter, is rather set in an  insane and terrifying counterpart to Hogwarts: the Scholomance, a school floating in the void, sans-adults, into which wizard children are inducted in order to protect them from  hundreds of monsters hoping to feed on their mana. Of course, the system isn’t perfect, and our main character El must navigate her life as a sophomore while fending off monsters and classmates at every turn.

While academia (papers, tests, assignments) arguably falls even more into the background in this story as survival takes precedence, the series does prevail in at least hinting at a criticism of the fantasy-school formula. In all three novels, A Deadly Education, The Last Graduate, and The Golden Enclaves, Novik presents an issue of fundamental inequality in her wizarding world: students who are born into “Enclaves” (like our main male lead, Orion) are essentially free to coast past the horrors of the Scholomance with a large group of privileged allies and the magical protections they enter with. Not being so privileged, the character El attempts to dismantle this system, and in The Golden Enclaves (spoiler alert!) she succeeds. Though not an extremely in-depth criticism of academia, this series does point out a bit of academia’s fundamental elitism, something that is more subtle in other fantasy school series. Therefore, I think it takes things a step further than Harry Potter. 

In my opinion, though, this series is also classified as “dark academia” because of Vibes—a sombre school setting, late-night study sessions in moving libraries, an empty void where a bedroom wall should be, and, of course, a dark and fear-filled plot. 

Perhaps a modified question I would pose to our online literaries is, how much commentary is enough?

What is the critique threshold for “dark academic” literature?

Lit Fic and Critique: The Secret History by Donna Tartt, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Often, the poster-children for what is considered “dark academia” are two literary classics, each attacking a different aspect of academic elitism: The Secret History by Donna Tartt and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. 

For those who are unfamiliar, The Secret History is a revered modern literary classic, in which we follow five privileged classics students at a prestigious college in Vermont. In taking us through the events that led up to the murder of the sixth, Donna Tartt cuttingly dissects the shortfalls of academic elitism. This, critics argue, is the feature that puts this work into the dark academia hall of fame. 

One might argue, though, that while an extremely profound and wonderful critique of academia, The Secret History may owe its “dark academia” to its setting more than it would like to admit. Consider this passage laying out the setting of Hampden College, one of many like it in the novel:

“--a white room with big north-facing windows, monkish and bare, with scarred oak floors and a ceiling slanted like a garret’s…I sat on the bed during the twilight while the walls went slowly from gray to gold to black, listening to a soprano’s voice climb dizzily up and down somewhere at the other end of the hall until at last the light was completely gone, and the faraway soprano spiraled on and on in the darkness like some angel of death, and I can’t remember the air ever seeming as high and cold and rarefied as it was that night, or ever feeling farther away from the low-slung lines of dusty Plano.” (Tartt 13)

For The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde is praised by dark academics for his incredible wit, and satirization of the elite academic pursuit of hedonism via the tale of a handsome man who attempts to maximize the pleasures of his indefinite youth while contending with the rotting of his soul—represented by the disfigurement of a painting. 

However, the primary reason so many claim this book as their “favourite classic” lies also in its gorgeous writing, again pertaining to a particularly “academic” setting, as in the opening passage:

“...now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.” (Wilde 1)

It seems, then, that while these “official” pillars of dark academia have all the requirements of academic works (in that they are critiques of academia), they still gain their “darkness” from the very same aesthetic qualities that make less “serious” fantasy dark academic.

The Intersection: Babel - RF Kuang

The answer to our question may lie in the intersection between fantasy and literary, Vibes^TM and critique: Babel by RF Kuang. 

Set in a magic-school version of Oxford University, this novel is an in-depth, all-out scathing criticism of the colonialism and racism so entrenched within Western academic institutions. What sets Kuang’s magic school apart from the rest is her magic system, which is founded on both the colonialism she criticizes and our main cast’s subject of academic study: translation. 

“Translation is the greatest act of betrayal.”

We follow Robin Swift, Ramy Rafi Mirza, and Victoire Desgraves through their lives as students of translation-magic: a process in which silver bars are engraved with an English word and its counterpart in another language. We begin to see with them just how much of their magical education, cloaked in the sombre beauty of Oxford, depends on the exploitation of people of colour, on stolen languages, and the destabilization of foreign countries for profit. 

And Babel, while being written with a rich, classically dark academic setting, owes its being a dark academia must-read to its intense criticism of all of the genre’s ugliness—the blood and oppression that lies bubbling in the aged candle wax and whispers along the lines of the mahogany desks and leather-bound books. The way in which Kuang not only incorporates this critique into her magic system but actually bases it on this critique brings me to my conclusion, an answer to my original question.

Q: What defines dark academia? 

A: Criticism at the foundation, aesthetics on the surface, dark subject matter, and, it is possible, a magic system woven using all of these threads.