Étoile

I don’t actually like horror or movies. What interests me at the moment is how horror of the 2020s has an element of perception and paying attention.

Multiple movies in one year discussed monsters that killed you if you perceived them. There are monsters you can’t look at; monsters that kill you instantly if you get their attention. Monsters where you have to be silent, look down, hold still: pray that they pass over you. M Zombies have changed from a hand-waved virus that covers extras in splashy gore, to insidious spores. A disaster film is called Don’t Look Up, a horror film is called Nope. Even trashy nun horror sets up strange premises of keeping your eyes fixed on something as the devil GETS you.

No idea if this is anything. (I haven’t seen any of these things because, unfortunately, I hate them.) Someone who understands better than me could say something clever here, and I hope they do.

It seems like there are two modes going on here: "avoid being perceived by the horror" (Bird Box, A Quiet Place etc) and "perform correctly so that the horror can't get you" (your trashy nun example). Both of them arise from surveillance logics; one is "avoid being surveilled or it will Get you", the other is "you are being surveilled, perform correctly or it will Get you".

And with regard to the social elements it's all reflecting, I mean -- have you seen the state of things? It's extremely difficult to avoid being surveilled! A monster where you have to not look at it is fucking easy mode by comparison!

- fear of observation (surveillance state)

- fear of not performing correctly (purity culture and evangelical backlashes)

The title of this post is clickbait. I, unfortunately, have not read every book ever. Not all of these books are particularly “dark” either. However, these are my recommendations for your dark academia fix. The quality of each of these books varies. I have limited this list to books that are directly linked to the world of academia and/or which have a vaguely academic setting.

Dark Academia staples:

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

Dead Poets Society by Nancy H. Kleinbaum

Vita Nostra by Maryna Dyachenko

Dark academia litfic or contemporary:

Bunny by Mona Awad

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

White Ivy by Susie Yang

The Cloisters by Katy Hays

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates

Attribution by Linda Moore

Dark academia thrillers or horror:

In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

The It Girl by Ruth Ware

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian

Dark academia fantasy/sci-fi:

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

The Betrayals by Bridget Collins

Dark academia romance:

Gothikana by RuNyx

Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake

Dark academia YA or MG:

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Crave by Tracy Wolff

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Dark academia miscellaneous:

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou

S.T., "300122," Tumblr, January 30, 2022, https://www.tumblr.com/ryebreadgf/674840497145233408/300122-st.

Silas Denver Melvin, "love as an act of merciful conquer," Tumblr, November 2, 2021, https://www.tumblr.com/sweatermuppet/669052643259432960/from-love-as-an-act-of-merciful-conquer-by-silas.

chandajaan, Tumblr, accessed via https://rockboci.tumblr.com/post/674728141263093760.

Richard Siken, "Birds Hover the Trampled Field," in War of the Foxes (April 28, 2015).

Emily Palermo, "What I Could Never Confess Without Some Bravado," The Rising Phoenix Review, March 15, 2016, https://therisingphoenixreview.com/2016/03/15/what-i-could-never-confess-without-some-bravado-by-emily-palermo/.

Georges Bataille, My Mother/Madame Edwarda/The Dead Man (January 1, 1966).

Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (April 1, 2000).

Frank O'Hara, "Homosexuality," Poetry Foundation, May 1970, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=31570.

Heather Havrilesky, "I'm Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I've Wasted My Whole Life," The Cut, November 28, 2018, https://www.thecut.com/2018/11/im-broke-and-friendless-and-ive-wasted-my-whole-life.html.