Nocticadia

Dark academia is both an aesthetic movement and a loosely defined literary subgenre. While it gained mainstream traction through social media platforms like Tumblr and TikTok, its thematic roots lie in works like the film Dead Poets Society (1989) and Donna Tartt’s 1992 novel The Secret History, which popularized the trope of obsessive intellectualism turned deadly (Tucker, Veronika. “Dark Academia: The Truth About the Genre & Subculture.” Bookish Brews, 17 Oct. 2022). It often unites modern characters with classical, often gothic settings, such as prestigious, architecturally imposing universities.

The genre is closely tied to visual and atmospheric aesthetics: ivy-covered architecture, candlelit libraries, well-worn paperbacks, and brooding weather. This aesthetic often extends to personal style—tweed, vintage knits, and earth-toned “academic” fashion—as well as curated interiors reminiscent of old boarding schools or Oxbridge dormitories. The seasonal aspect also relates to mood, as dark academia is often mysterious, spooky, and serious—much like gothic-horror novels. Stories often occur during the school year, meaning that they start in the autumn and develop through the winter, and this influences the setting and tone.

Much like Dead Poets Society or The Secret History, dark academia often revolves around a tight-knit social circle—typically a group of intellectual, ambitious, and emotionally volatile students—whose relationships deteriorate under the weight of secrets, betrayal, or philosophical obsession. There are often strong undertones of wealth and class politics among the students, as elite universities may be open primarily to upper-class students, and Nocticadia grapples with this through the depiction of a working-class main character attending a fictional Ivy League school on a scholarship.

Though dark academia is a term still lacking a strict definition, many tropes within the genre have arisen in contemporary fiction. This is likely due to the trend in Keri Lake’s author description, where books are publicized based on their tropes—common character traits, circumstances, or plot beats—and writers or publishers then cyclically create works to specifically involve these tropes. Dark academia frequently overlaps with dark romance, where power imbalances or forbidden dynamics play out, and gothic horror, which introduces themes of psychological decay, obscure knowledge, and institutions hiding sinister truths. While not all dark academia stories include supernatural elements, many invoke a gothic sensibility: existential dread, decaying grandeur, and the burden of knowledge.