Punk? Academia

Punk? Academia

I'm making this as a separate post to @librarian-by-day's very good point on this thread about dark academia.

As funny as this vibe is, I think the original ‘darkness’ of dark academia has been lost. Donna Tartt’s The Secret History is a foundational text of dark academia. But this book is all about the trap of elitism in higher education. Which is legitimately a problem. As someone from the US, I think the ways higher education fails us, promotes elitism (and oppresses the working class), and ergo supports white supremacy culture SHOULD absolutely be critiqued. If anything, dark academia should be called punk academia…or something along those lines. I don’t want to hate on enjoying aethetics, because they are fun and creative. And its lovely to consider the way you present yourself as an artform. I just think there is so much power behind these kinds of critiques. But dark academia, so perfectly set up to challenge higher education in this way, doesn’t seem to go there. (Maybe I just haven’t found those critiques yet, though?)

Really, I think they said everything I might want to far better than I ever could. Thanks for calling attention to this very real problem that lies beneath the surface of the ivory tower. My humble addition is in the form of a few reading recommendations.

I had the privilege to teach a class about Indigenous research methodologies, taught by an Indigenous professor. As part of that class, we did a lot of reading about how to work within and against an inherently colonial, white supremacist organization like a university.

University of Minnesota Press

A Third University Is Possible

Uncovering the decolonizing ghost in the colonizing machine

I would highly encourage everyone who works in/adjacent to academia to read these two books. Both of them offer important insights on the nature of academia, and how research can be a tool of or a vector for pushing back against structural and systemic inequality.

I love you PBS I love you NPR I love you public libraries I love you wikipedia I love you project gutenberg I love you librivox I love you libby I love you hoopla I love you openlibrary I love you internet archive I love you resources that make information free and accessible to the public

Cyberpunk Librarian

hello world! I've been digging around to find a dumping ground for my accumulation of PDFs for easier access for others and I stumbled across this fine fellow. (click on him to see the website)

This fellow has not only a podcast about library tech FOR FREE (or at least a very low cost) but also some very cool guides about storing music and navigating open source projects!

(and some very hot takes on the dewey decible system lmao)

I swear this isn't an ad but it's just a very very very bibliopunk resource and I need to scream about this guy into the void.

Thanks for reading shoutout to Daniel Messer ur so cool I'm a dan fan

hey, don't cry. one cup heavy whipping cream, two tablespoons granulated sugar, three tablespoons cocoa powder and whisk until stiff peaks form for three ingredient chocolate mousse, okay?

i love you open access libraries i love you sci hub i love you lib gen and all your pseudo names i love you zlib i love you second hand book shop with textbook section i love you friend from other uni who has access to their library i love you internet friend with PDFs i love you well orgnaised google drive full of books i love you internet archive i love you libby i love you state library with the only physical copy of my textbook i love you tumblr mutual with book hyperfixation i love you discord library pdf horders i love you anna's archive i love you friends who never clear out your downloads folder

can't believe this vine classic isn't going around