3 ms·

Dark Academia Grows Up

65 points by lermontov 1y ago

pjs_ 1y ago
No mention of Gormenghast? Bumbaclart…
- giraffe_lady 1y ago
  I don't think it fits in the genre particularly? Been a while since I read it though. The bigger omission is Byatt's Possession, predating The Secret History by a couple years and I think possibly being the type specimen of what is now called dark academia.
  - libraryofbabel 1y ago
    Oh that’s interesting - I’d never thought of Possession as being dark academia. But you’re right, it is. It’s certainly one of my favorite novels, on another level than The Secret History which I also enjoyed. Every time I re-read it I am impressed all over again by how it’s woven together and, not least, how Byatt managed to write all the poems herself.
  - defrost 1y ago
    Tangentially - it's an absurdist character rich fantasy bound by a 70 generations old castle (or university? Well, no, but shade is thrown). Not a clean fit to Dark Academia, but a lesser known and worthy forerunner. Also, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Stephen Fry, and many others in the 2000 TV adaption is good entertainment for anyone with a DA bent. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsPC8m4zo9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsPC8m4zo9g
  - AlotOfReading 1y ago
    The list doesn't have to be exhaustive. It also misses the vita nostra series, which is interesting as an example of the same subgenre occurring outside the anglosphere. The Secret History is generally regarded as the prototype for the modern subgenre though.
    - giraffe_lady 1y ago
      No of course it isn't exhaustive I wouldn't want or expect that from this kind of article. > The Secret History is generally regarded as the prototype for the modern subgenre though. Well, but that's why I mentioned possession. I know the secret history is considered the original dark academia, but possession predates it, is retrospectively just as firmly within this genre as it is understood now, and while not as famous is probably as influential on authors within it. It's a striking omission in an overview of the history of the genre. Vita Nostra definitely fits the genre descriptively but I think it's more connected to a russian fantasy/slavic magical realism tradition that there isn't really a name for and that we only get a little bit of translated decades later. To me it shares a lot more with like mariam petrosyan and sergei lukyanenko than it does donna tartt.
libraryofbabel 1y ago
This is a review of Katabasis, R.F. Kuang's new book. I wonder if there are any fans of Kuang here who can convince me to give her another go; I did not much like Babel, and only got 20% of the way into it. (This despite being a recovering humanities scholar who still wears dark-academiaish tweed skirts to her programming job.) From what I remember, the characters were a bit flat, the plot didn't draw me in, and the writing style was a little formulaic. I can't help compare with Donna Tartt's The Secret History, which I absolutely adored.
- yannyu 1y ago
  Babel is a story structured like a certain YA wizard series with very clear antagonists that are not remotely good people with very little in terms of shades of gray. Kuang has very clear themes and ideas that she wants to convey, and she leaves little to the imagination in terms of plot arcs and motivations and morality. On the other hand Babel has interesting characters that have a realistic representation of what it's like to have grown up in a cross-cultural context and how it can feel like you're betraying someone no matter what you do, which is not something I see in much media at all. She also starkly portrays and analyzes a trap that minorities can fall into where they are complicit in their own oppression. Also, I appreciate Kuang's refreshing approach to having the bad people be bad people as opposed to misguided or misunderstood people with good intentions. Some kinds of bad-ness really shouldn't be excused, or perhaps have been explored to death already.
- giraffe_lady 1y ago
  These are the common complaints about all of kuang's books and I think even the people who like her work generally acknowledge they are well-founded. Her stuff clearly resonates with people despite those weaknesses, but if they don't for you then why push. There are a lot of books.
- igor47 1y ago
  Yeah, Babel had an interesting premise that didn't ultimately coalesce into a good book. I stuck with it, but only because I'm a compulsive book finisher.
- sevensor 1y ago
decasia 1y ago
“If the devotion scholars feel toward their work is intense and sometimes irrational, it’s because this is one of the last spaces of unalienated labor” Speaking as a former academic, I don’t really agree with this — I think academia can make you believe wrongly that it’s a kind of “unalienated labor,” but actually the alienation runs deep, all the deeper when it’s invisible at first glance. Yes, you don’t have to make something that is sold to customers or that fits in a JIRA ticket. But when you stop and think about it, you’re going to be doing research based on topics and paradigms that other people have largely defined (advisors, peers); you have to publish in journals that are often for profit and pay you zero; when you teach you usually don’t get paid all the tuition that your students are paying per course (the institution takes a big cut); you end up doing a lot of silly things to have a solid institutional position… TLDR, it has great moments of course, but it isn’t unalienated.
- nextos 1y ago
  Besides, in many fields, lots of interesting research is now being done at industrial labs. So there's no reason to cope with the abuse the article describes so well, e.g. "[...] a celebrity scholar who enjoys seeing his advisees suffer, plays them against each other, and likes to remind them that without him, their careers are nothing". As an Oxbridge academic, I can confidently state that lots of things done by e.g. Isomorphic Labs, GSK AI, or Altos Labs are better than the stuff we do in the exact same subfield. Furthermore, they pay better, there is less drama, the workplace is much more professional and, above everything, they don't suffer from the power imbalance that has made academia so toxic.
  - jltsiren 1y ago
    "In the exact same subfield" is the key point. The academia is small. If a topic has enough direct monetary value to justify substantial spending in it, the industry will usually do better work. Academic research works better in topics that don't have such monetary value, at least not yet. The academia lacks consistency, but I wouldn't characterize it as toxic. Many individual labs and departments are toxic, but the academia as a whole isn't. The same freedom that lets individual PIs pursue their own directions in their own ways also lets many of them create toxic work environments. But curtailing the toxicity is difficult without sacrificing the freedom the academia depends on.
curtisszmania 1y ago
[dead]

65 points by lermontov 1y ago

pjs_ 1y ago

No mention of Gormenghast? Bumbaclart…

giraffe_lady 1y ago
I don't think it fits in the genre particularly? Been a while since I read it though. The bigger omission is Byatt's Possession, predating The Secret History by a couple years and I think possibly being the type specimen of what is now called dark academia.
- libraryofbabel 1y ago
  Oh that’s interesting - I’d never thought of Possession as being dark academia. But you’re right, it is. It’s certainly one of my favorite novels, on another level than The Secret History which I also enjoyed. Every time I re-read it I am impressed all over again by how it’s woven together and, not least, how Byatt managed to write all the poems herself.
- defrost 1y ago
  Tangentially - it's an absurdist character rich fantasy bound by a 70 generations old castle (or university? Well, no, but shade is thrown). Not a clean fit to Dark Academia, but a lesser known and worthy forerunner. Also, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Stephen Fry, and many others in the 2000 TV adaption is good entertainment for anyone with a DA bent. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsPC8m4zo9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsPC8m4zo9g
- AlotOfReading 1y ago
  The list doesn't have to be exhaustive. It also misses the vita nostra series, which is interesting as an example of the same subgenre occurring outside the anglosphere. The Secret History is generally regarded as the prototype for the modern subgenre though.
  - giraffe_lady 1y ago
    No of course it isn't exhaustive I wouldn't want or expect that from this kind of article. > The Secret History is generally regarded as the prototype for the modern subgenre though. Well, but that's why I mentioned possession. I know the secret history is considered the original dark academia, but possession predates it, is retrospectively just as firmly within this genre as it is understood now, and while not as famous is probably as influential on authors within it. It's a striking omission in an overview of the history of the genre. Vita Nostra definitely fits the genre descriptively but I think it's more connected to a russian fantasy/slavic magical realism tradition that there isn't really a name for and that we only get a little bit of translated decades later. To me it shares a lot more with like mariam petrosyan and sergei lukyanenko than it does donna tartt.

libraryofbabel 1y ago

This is a review of Katabasis, R.F. Kuang's new book. I wonder if there are any fans of Kuang here who can convince me to give her another go; I did not much like Babel, and only got 20% of the way into it. (This despite being a recovering humanities scholar who still wears dark-academiaish tweed skirts to her programming job.) From what I remember, the characters were a bit flat, the plot didn't draw me in, and the writing style was a little formulaic. I can't help compare with Donna Tartt's The Secret History, which I absolutely adored.

yannyu 1y ago
Babel is a story structured like a certain YA wizard series with very clear antagonists that are not remotely good people with very little in terms of shades of gray. Kuang has very clear themes and ideas that she wants to convey, and she leaves little to the imagination in terms of plot arcs and motivations and morality. On the other hand Babel has interesting characters that have a realistic representation of what it's like to have grown up in a cross-cultural context and how it can feel like you're betraying someone no matter what you do, which is not something I see in much media at all. She also starkly portrays and analyzes a trap that minorities can fall into where they are complicit in their own oppression. Also, I appreciate Kuang's refreshing approach to having the bad people be bad people as opposed to misguided or misunderstood people with good intentions. Some kinds of bad-ness really shouldn't be excused, or perhaps have been explored to death already.
giraffe_lady 1y ago
These are the common complaints about all of kuang's books and I think even the people who like her work generally acknowledge they are well-founded. Her stuff clearly resonates with people despite those weaknesses, but if they don't for you then why push. There are a lot of books.
igor47 1y ago
Yeah, Babel had an interesting premise that didn't ultimately coalesce into a good book. I stuck with it, but only because I'm a compulsive book finisher.
sevensor 1y ago

decasia 1y ago

“If the devotion scholars feel toward their work is intense and sometimes irrational, it’s because this is one of the last spaces of unalienated labor” Speaking as a former academic, I don’t really agree with this — I think academia can make you believe wrongly that it’s a kind of “unalienated labor,” but actually the alienation runs deep, all the deeper when it’s invisible at first glance. Yes, you don’t have to make something that is sold to customers or that fits in a JIRA ticket. But when you stop and think about it, you’re going to be doing research based on topics and paradigms that other people have largely defined (advisors, peers); you have to publish in journals that are often for profit and pay you zero; when you teach you usually don’t get paid all the tuition that your students are paying per course (the institution takes a big cut); you end up doing a lot of silly things to have a solid institutional position… TLDR, it has great moments of course, but it isn’t unalienated.

nextos 1y ago
Besides, in many fields, lots of interesting research is now being done at industrial labs. So there's no reason to cope with the abuse the article describes so well, e.g. "[...] a celebrity scholar who enjoys seeing his advisees suffer, plays them against each other, and likes to remind them that without him, their careers are nothing". As an Oxbridge academic, I can confidently state that lots of things done by e.g. Isomorphic Labs, GSK AI, or Altos Labs are better than the stuff we do in the exact same subfield. Furthermore, they pay better, there is less drama, the workplace is much more professional and, above everything, they don't suffer from the power imbalance that has made academia so toxic.
- jltsiren 1y ago
  "In the exact same subfield" is the key point. The academia is small. If a topic has enough direct monetary value to justify substantial spending in it, the industry will usually do better work. Academic research works better in topics that don't have such monetary value, at least not yet. The academia lacks consistency, but I wouldn't characterize it as toxic. Many individual labs and departments are toxic, but the academia as a whole isn't. The same freedom that lets individual PIs pursue their own directions in their own ways also lets many of them create toxic work environments. But curtailing the toxicity is difficult without sacrificing the freedom the academia depends on.

curtisszmania 1y ago

[dead]