A Different World
A vintage typewriter sits gracefully on the ornate and beautifully handcrafted mahogany desk, while scents of the cold rain and old-leather-bound books send a rush of chills down your spine. There are the dark haunting colors of the hidden hallway that lead to the mysterious and entrancing candlelit library. The intricate, elegant sounds of the violin fill your ears as they create a surreal world completely detached from reality, one characterized by a seductive, menacing beauty that blurs the line between terror and enchantment. Each of these illustrate the fundamental elements in the aesthetics of Dark Academia, specifically the romanticism of the arts and infatuation with Victorian and gothic styles, which were studied in Dr. Miller’s writing course in the Spring of 2023. Though the characteristics of Dark Academia are rooted in classical literature, art, and architecture, the subgenre itself was not defined until Donna Tartt’s The Secret History’s popularity was propelled by the internet, laying the groundwork for a new classification of aesthetics. The course’s primary text, The Secret History, is the handbook for the dark academia aesthetic as it acts as the epitome of the distortion and escape of reality, one of the aesthetic’s fundamental characteristics. The focus of the course is the identification and development of multimodal communication skills, including written, oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal communication (WOVEN), through the analysis of Dark Academia. This was achieved through multiple artifacts. The goal of Artifact One was to expand multimodal exploration by creating a written argument on The Secret History and translating the focus into another form of communication. In Artifact Two, students were challenged to develop concise oral communication with proper rhetorical awareness while progressing both electronic and visual modes as well. In Artifact Three, the class was tasked with displaying the semester’s research on Dark Academia on a multimodal platform, showing not only how their skills concerning the WOVEN principles have evolved but also proving the way in which Dark Academia is inherently multimodal. Acting as both an aesthetic and a literary subgenre, Dark Academia is able to appeal to all the senses in both a visual electronic form as well as written forms. Come explore Coffee By Candlelight to uncover the various manifestations of Dark Academia that Georgia Tech students have examined.
