CFP:Dark Academia: Definitions, Theories, and Prospects
We are seeking essays and papers for an edited collection which engages the concept of ‘dark academia.’
At the center of the dark academic sensibility lies a paradox: though dark academia enjoys the cosmetic trappings of the pursuit of higher knowledge, it is at its core a celebration of the university as a place of occultation and performativity. The dark academic’s taste for mystery, history, and a distinctly Anglophone, Romantico-Modernist canon – coupled with an equally distinct early 20th century sartorial and lifestyle model – runs inevitably into exclusivity, elitism, and reactionary nostalgia. Indeed, the case can be made that these very elements are in fact constitutive of dark academia, as such.