dark academia

English

Alternative forms

• Dark Academia

Etymology

Gothic architecture is characteristic of dark academia.

Reportedly first emerged as an aesthetic tag on Tumblr in the mid-2010s.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

dark academia (uncountable)

1. (Internet) An aesthetic popularized in the 2010s, centered on higher education, writing, the arts, and classic Greek and Gothic architecture, as well as romantic longing and death.
   • 2021, Jacqueline Kipping, "Dark academia", The Issue (Radboud University), Fall 2021, page 21:

     Dark Academia has received valid criticism for its Eurocentrism and elitism.

   • 2021, Caitlin Haviland, "Breaking the BU Bubble", The Buzz (Boston University), Fall 2021, page 67:

     I thought that dark academia and brownstone mansions were all that Boston had to offer, or at least, it didn’t occur to me to even consider what might be beyond my idealistic vision.

   • 2023, Rebecca van Besouw, "Literature Spotlight: Babel by RF Kuang", PDBY (University of Pretoria), 8 May 2023, page 11:

     As a recent example of the ‘dark academia’ trend in literature, the novel effectively examines and subverts the romanticised view of so-called ‘prestigious’ universities.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:dark academia.

Derived terms

• dark academic
• light academia

Further reading

• dark academia on Wikipedia.Wikipedia