My Oxford Year and the Fantasy of Dark Academia

Old libraries and dusty tomes. Gothic spires and cobblestone streets. Corduroy trousers and tweed blazers. Ink stains and candle wax. Dark Academia is every English lit grad’s wet dream, and we, your local former gifted children, are by no means immune to its charms. And neither is Netflix it seems.

Join us this episode as we discuss the pervasiveness of Dark Academia across all corners of pop culture and in particular, Netflix’s contribution to the romanticisation of Oxford University: My Oxford Year. Listen, we can delude ourselves into thinking it’s all for the love of the art, for the love of poetry itself, but set against the backdrop of an ancient elite higher education institution? It’s not all so pretty upon a closer look.

While this episode might just be a thinly veiled excuse for us to rant about how Edna St. Vincent Millay is not a Victorian poet, we’re also here to remind the internet (and ourselves) to stay self-aware as we explore the wealth and class implications of the Dark in Dark Academia.

Music by Max Elliott

Bibliography

• Dead Poets Society. Directed by Peter Weir, Touchstone Pictures, 1989.

• Ellis, Rowan. “The Problem with Dark Academia.” Youtube, 30 June 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfkYXVdkUEE.

• Kevin Dettmar. “Dead Poets Society Is a Terrible Defense of the Humanities.” The Atlantic, The Atlantic, 19 Feb. 2014, www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/-em-dead-poets-society-em-is-a-terrible-defense-of-the-humanities/283853/.

• Kuang, R. F. Babel. HarperCollins, 2022.

• Kuang, R. F. Katabasis. Voyager, 2025.

• McLaughlin, Katherine. “The Design Style That Defined 2022 Is Not What You’d Expect.” Architectural Digest, 16 Dec. 2022, www.architecturaldigest.com/story/dark-academia-design-trend.

• My Oxford Year. Directed by Iain Morris, Netflix, 2025.

• Rio, M. L. “All Academia Is Dark Academia - Electric Literature.” Electric Literature, 8 Nov. 2024, electricliterature.com/all-academia-is-dark-academia/.

• Rio, M. L. If We Were Villains. Titan Books, 2017.
• Tartt, Donna. The Secret History. Penguin Books, 1992.