Arabic Dark Academia Consists Of Drinking Black Arabic Coffee While Listening To Um Kalthoum And Learning

Normalize science academia

Okay, we get that dark and light academia are mostly associated with social and language studies. But what about the people who study physics and chemistry and math and who have adopted the light/dark academia aesthetic? Give me the physics scribbling notes on the 123nd notebook of the month and gazing at discs turning, springs springing and pendulums moving incessantly. Give me the aspiring chemists being careful and frantic at the same time while they measure all kinds of substances and turn the pages of books, with dirty glasses slightly broken to the side. Give me the mathematicians who are writing quickly like there is no tomorrow on the chalkboard and when there is no more space they continue on walls and notebooks. Give me all those scientists who, once at home throw their robes in the washing machine and sit down with coffee and a book and turn their radio to the classic station. Maybe the book is a classic or a piece of poetry, maybe it is related to their subjects, but they make notes on the spaces of the page. They may not be able to analyze it like an English major but they are devoted to their purposes and absolutely love their occupation.

Sabrina (1954) dir. Billy Wilder

I adore the traditional afghan dresses. Beautifully captured.

messy handwriting that’s a combination between cursive and print. books with folded down corners. clear tea cups with peppermint tea. coffee rings on book pages. rain stained windows. freshly started garden filled with poppys. the smell of coffee cake in the oven. an absurd amount of missed calls. late nights sprawled out in crisis on your bedroom floor. the tapping of a pen repeatedly on a desk. mismatched socks.

Two Pashtun men greeting

Location: Kado, Nortwest Frontier. Pakistan

Photographer: Michael Freeman

“Be patient where you sit in the dark, the dawn is coming.”

Maulana Rumi

Dark Academia: STEM Edition

(because everyone talks about the literature lovers but not the science lovers)

Staring through a microscope far longer than you should just because you love being able to see what few others have seen

The idea of pushing the boundaries of human knowledge, of making an impact

Studying ocean currents and still feeling amazed when you see them churning the sea’s surface

Messy writing

Going through online libraries and only reading the abstracts of research papers

Thousand page anatomy textbooks

Latin words you don’t quite know the meaning of

That feeling when memorizating facts finally turns into understanding concepts

Knowledge of biological functions even though you’re not quite sure when you learned it

south asian dark academia

dark academia critics

dark academia is like one of my favourite aesthetics however there are certain things/issues that bother me about this whole aesthetic

1. where is the diversity?

have you ever come across any dark academia posts that included any people of color. everywhere I go, all I see is elite white kids. I would die to see japanese/korean/indian /pakistani/ african/ middle eastern dark academia students often wearing their ethnic attires and embracing their cultures.

2. eat the rich

I know the whole theme about dark academia is ivy league/ rich elite students but imagine middle class dark academia srudents who are not necessarily clad in expensive attires rather wearing clothes bought from the thrift stores studying on scholarships, who own second hand books and antique/vintage items from some local flee markets or thrift stores.

3. fuck that Greek philosophy

not that I hate Greek philosophy but all dark academia posts do talk about is western art/architechture/ mythologies / history and philosophy etc. I would love to read and discuss persian poetry and history , south asian mythologies, japanese/Arabic/korean calligraphy, Muslim world's art and architecture.

4. what's up with that nerd shit.

why are dark academia students always protrayed as nerds, reserve, quiet, hates to have a social life, perfectionist who can't afford to get any grades lower than As etc like even the best students have their ups and downs, what matters is the passion and the will to do better. It's okay to have a life outside books, to have romantic dates, to prank, to hangout with yout friends, to skip classes, to be unorganized...its more realistic.

Reading The Kite Runner, and came across this:

“I remember something Baba said about Pashtuns once. We may be hardheaded, and i know we’re far too proud, but, in the hour of need, believe me there’s no one you’d rather have at your side than a Pushtun” 

So accurate it hurts