Bodleian Library at Oxford University. The quintessential Dark Academia setting. (The rounded hexagonal stars at the top are windows, not occult symbols.)
Dark Academia is one of those -punk subgenres/aesthetic styles, but without the punk in its name. It deals with, basically, anything you’d see at the site of a old, respectable university in Europe or the U.S. — a library full of weighty tomes and classic literature, old money, gothic architecture, dark wood, leather seats, well-kept secrets. I would call it Hogwarts + Goth, as the aesthetic came into its own during the heyday of the Harry Potter movies, shortly before that cinematic universe drewto ts close. Also like Harry Potter, it leans into the years 1930 – 1959, before the social and intellectual upheavals of the 1960s, which “ruined” it forever.
In fantasy literature, it truly blossomed with Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House urban fantasy thriller, but it’s been hanging around, if unnamed, for decades: Donna Tartt’s novel The Secret History (1992) and the movie Dead Poets Society (1989) being two examples. Of late, the monied private school for monstrous offspring that Wednesday Addams attends in Wednesday (Netflix, 2023) is Dark Academia at its finest.
Of course, a Dark Academia setting means dark-sounding names, of which these are but a few.
Dark Academia, Locations on Campus
| Thomas Joast Memorial Drive
Yeever Cultural Center Svorof Observatory Falkendon West Chelsius Hall Teasweep Gardens Sylvanus Chank Memorial Wing Wisdoror Cafeteria Tundyne Health Sciences Center Ringsalter Library Devray Pavilion Lockendon Garden Ubretto Playhouse Esther Burn Square |
Gracielle Moorcock Student Center
Fornheart African Art Gallery Edeltroud Lawn Purity Verneeve Science Hall Drylands Avionics Research Center Schlussglot Lab Myrtle Herrit Faculty Building Spunglunt West Raknieves Quad Dallestorm Archive Sylvanus Chank Science Building Ever Granger Art Gallery Sophia Boscomb Student Union Building Carthrot Lecture Hall |
