A Re-Introduction to Dark Academia in 2025
If this is your first time here: hi, hello, you made it. Welcome to the inner sanctum. We’re The Dark Academicals, and this is your syllabus-free, mood-heavy crash course in the genre (aesthetic? lifestyle?) we just can’t stop obsessing over: dark academia. And what that means in 2025.
In this post, we’re giving you the rundown: the highest highs, the lowest of lows; the breaches into immorality, and maybe even immortality; and the kinds of questions that come up when you’re living and studying inside the ivy-covered walls of elite institutions that smell like old money and fresh printer ink.
If you want the full experience; including a hearty back-and-forth between your two favrourite podcast hosts: listen to the episode here on Substack. It’s part of our Summer School series: a lightly unhinged, highly enthusiastic reorientation into the dark halls and dusty libraries of our favourite genre.
So What Is Dark Academia?
Depending on who you ask, it’s either a highly specific literary sub-genre, a Tumblr aesthetic with a caffeine addiction, or a lifestyle choice involving Latin declensions, oversized blazers, and a complete disregard for student loan repayments.
But for our purposes, dark academia is fiction that’s obsessed with knowledge, power, and beauty, and what happens when the pursuit of those things unravels you.
It’s not just dark-coloured cardigans and tragic deaths. It’s about ambition turning corrosive. It’s about wanting to be chosen, wanting to be the cleverest person in the room, and then wondering who you became to get there.
Your Core Texts
This is by no means exhaustive (we love a sidebar reading list), but if you’re trying to get a grip on what dark academia is, or what it wants to be, start here:
The Secret History by Donna Tartt – The blueprint. Greek tragedy in Vermont. Morally bankrupt intellectuals. Murder, but make it erudite.
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio – Shakespeare meets slow-burn self-destruction.
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo – Occult secret societies at Yale. Ghosts, trauma, power struggles. You’ll never look at orientation week the same again.
Bunny by Mona Awad – Not technically dark academia, but girl does it go there. Surreal, savage, full of MFA-induced dread.
And for extra credit:
Babel by R.F. Kuang
Madam by Phoebe Wynne
The Cloisters by Katy Hays
The Films That Feed the Genre
Dark academia on screen doesn’t always look how it feels in fiction, but these are the ones we keep coming back to:
Dead Poets Society – Yes, it’s sentimental. But the tension between tradition and rebellion is peak genre.
The Riot Club – Rich boys being awful. And violent. And very well-dressed.
Saltburn – The new kid on the block, and she came with teeth. Sexy, unhinged, and willing to burn it all down.
Kill Your Darlings – The beat poets, murder, and Daniel Radcliffe trying very hard not to be Harry Potter anymore.
Aesthetic vs. Genre vs. Brand
Here’s where things get juicy.
Dark academia started as an aesthetic; think candlelit libraries, rain-slicked cobblestones, and moody undergrads reading Foucault for fun. But it’s evolved into something more commercial. It’s now a genre, complete with tropes, expectations, and a dedicated fanbase.
And like all genres that find a stronghold online, it’s also become a marketing tool. Publishers are slapping “dark academia” on everything from morally gray high fantasy to any book with a haunted boarding school. Some of them deserve it. Some… not so much.
On The Dark Academicals, we talk through the real deal; the stories that aren’t just wearing the uniform but embody the spirit. The hunger. The madness.
Why We Keep Coming Back
Because it’s seductive.
Because it asks what knowledge is for.
Because we love a crumbling institution and a girl who wants too much.
Because dark academia doesn’t flinch at the price of obsession; it just opens the next book.
Join Us in the Stacks
If you’re ready to dive deeper into the genre; its history, its tropes, its strange literary children, then listen to the full episode on Substack. We’ll be dissecting books, films, vibes, and controversies all summer long.
