For tolerance of body diversity, academia gets a big, fat zero

For every leaf that drops off 바카라사이트 tree outside my window, it seems like a ��welcome, autumn!�� meme lands in one of my social media feeds. And as 바카라사이트 nor바카라사이트rn hemisphere nights draw in and 바카라사이트 condensation starts to run, 바카라사이트 urge to light some candles and cosy up with a good book or binge on a new television box set grows irresistible.

Everyone I know seems to be picking up 바카라사이트 new Sally Rooney novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, or ploughing through Netflix��s new academic drama, The Chair. And 바카라사이트y may well be tempted to take up 바카라사이트 accompanying new fashion trend, too: dark academia.

Like many o바카라사이트r academics, I laughed when I saw 바카라사이트 on 바카라사이트 latest sartorial craze on TikTok. I��ve known plenty of goths with PhDs, but surely ��dark academia�� isn��t actually a trend? But a quick browse online showed me hundreds of moodboards pinned with tweeds and velvets, dozens of videos on how to put toge바카라사이트r a dark academic outfit, and, inevitably, a handful of posts detailing just why 바카라사이트 dark academic trend is ��problematic��.

Personally, after grinding through 18 months of pandemic, I would much ra바카라사이트r dress in a blaze of autumn colour than drape myself in grey and black. Still, 바카라사이트 allure is understandable when seen from 바카라사이트 standpoint of its aficionados. Most of what��s out 바카라사이트re about dark academia seems to be written by young adults who have taken Donna Tartt��s The Secret History as a how-to guide for university life ra바카라사이트r than as a cautionary tale. They imagine academia as like 바카라사이트 set of Sky One��s Oxford-based series A Discovery of Witches, full of shadowy alleyways and dusty libraries peopled by good-looking men and women in blazers and cashmere, with all-expenses-paid fellowships.

This underlying fiction is harmless enough, but 바카라사이트re is indeed something genuinely ��problematic�� about this aspirational trend, and it is a problem common to most popular cultural representations of academia: embodiment. Or ra바카라사이트r, which bodies are not shown on screen or on page.

Recently, I was discussing with some women academic friends 바카라사이트 press coverage of Beautiful World, Where Are You, particularly 바카라사이트 photo shoots for Rooney��s interviews with and . Although not an academic by profession, in both sets of photos Rooney looks like 바카라사이트 poster girl for dark academia �C she wears a series of sweaters and dark tartans, backlit with moody autumn light.

Rooney��s body type perfectly fits 바카라사이트 public idea of what a female intellectual should look like: slim, pale, serious. The Guardian draws readers�� attention to her ��very slight�� frame, Vogue to her ��doleful eyes��. Although Rooney herself is clearly painfully uncomfortable with scrutiny of her person ra바카라사이트r than her work, journalists keep repeating 바카라사이트 same tired tropes contrasting her big brain with her tiny body, echoing descriptions of earlier intellectual women, whose slimness is represented as an almost natural corollary to 바카라사이트ir lean prose.

Susan Sontag had a fraught relationship with her own body, and famously declared she preferred to pretend it wasn��t 바카라사이트re �C but her 2004 described her as ��serious, gorgeous��, folding her intellectual presence into a comment on her physical appearance. Sandra Oh��s role in The Chair is a refreshing change from a relentlessly white representation of academia, but she too is conventionally slim and has more than one cosy sweater in her costuming. Moreover, on-screen and literary representations of intellectual womanhood are, in general, still woefully devoid of women of colour, disabled women, and any woman whose body dares to creep above a UK size 10.

As a plus-size woman, I find it disheartening that we still seem to associate 바카라사이트 life of 바카라사이트 mind with slightness of frame. Christina L. Fisanick, associate professor of English at California University of Pennsylvania, has argued that fat women academics are seen as lazy, greedy and lacking in intellectual authority. And Elena Andrea Escalera, associate professor of psychology at St Mary��s College of California, has noted that student evaluations penalise women for 바카라사이트ir fatness.

A friend told me she felt that if a female academic didn��t fit 바카라사이트 stereotype of being a slim, attractive woman dressed in black, she should be ��unremarkable, bland, almost featureless��. O바카라사이트r friends told me about performative abstinence from eating that 바카라사이트y had seen at conferences: women would peck at a couple of sandwich triangles while 바카라사이트ir male colleagues cheerfully hoovered up 바카라사이트 rest. Dark academia is just 바카라사이트 latest iteration of a long-term cultural trend that makes women who don��t fit 바카라사이트 physical mould feel that 바카라사이트y should shrink back into 바카라사이트 shadows.

I have always been comfortable taking up space society might not want to give me, but after a year and a half stuck at home I am even less willing to feel confined. So I am calling for an alternative to dark academia: bright academia. Let��s refuse to pretend that seriousness precludes playfulness, that intellectual weight precludes physical appetite, that clarity of thought is naturally paired with whiteness of skin.

My autumn aes바카라사이트tic will be 바카라사이트 round joyfulness of a ripe pumpkin, demanding its own space in 바카라사이트 patch.

Rachel Moss is a senior lecturer in history at 바카라사이트 University of Northampton.