Esmé Warmuth and Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night”

Esmé Warmuth is a senior English Honors major currently developing a thesis centered around Dark Academia in literature. With a passion for feminism, queer studies, and the work of Donna Tartt, Esmé’s time at Stony Brook has given her the insight to pursue her research wholeheartedly. 

Talk to me about your honors thesis. 

My honors thesis evolved from me really loving Dark Academia and [that subgenre of] books when I was in high school, especially in the pandemic. As I got older, I still loved the stories, but I began to question the representations of women [within them] specifically. I started to wonder why these books are often so structured with women as objects. My idea evolved from there into a consideration of the genre of literature that falls under the term “Dark Academia” which has become very popular online. I’m considering, first of all, Dark Academia as a subculture, and I’m arguing that Dark Academia is larger than just these works of fiction. Within the Dark Academia aesthetic, there’s a very specific literary subgenre which I am calling, “Tarttian Campus Fiction” after Donna Tartt. I’m further arguing that these books fundamentally involve and center queerness in their narratives. I think part of why they’re so popular and feel so comforting to people is because they are stories about murder and worshipping antiquity, but they’re also stories about spaces in which you could exist as a queer person. The love triangles that exist in all of these stories are examples of mimetic desire (desire of something because it belongs to someone you admire) with the woman being the object that is desired because another man desires it. This is something the theorist René Girard came up with, subject-model-object erotic triangles. What I’m arguing is that in dark academia, Girard’s traditional idea of the love triangle is subverted by the existence of a murder which takes these characters outside of traditional society and allows the subject and model to pursue each other directly, which cuts out the object, the woman, and that creates misogyny in the narratives.

What advice would you give to students who are about to begin their thesis writing processes? 

Definitely make an outline and a timetable. It might not feel necessary, but it definitely is. Secondarily, I would say, if you have an idea about what you want to say, try not to be discouraged or overwhelmed and try in whatever way you can to execute your idea. There are many factors that could lead to you thinking it might be the path of least resistance to compromise or modify your original plan, but if it’s what you think will be best for the thesis, then you should do your best to execute it in that way.

How has being an English major changed your approach to writing? 

I think being an English major has allowed me to understand there is not necessarily a correct answer in this major, at any point. It’s not about the pursuit of a correct answer, but rather, since writing is so inherently driven by emotion, [it] requires a degree of trusting yourself and making [your] point based on what you feel when you read. I feel that the new generation of scholars has to be able to contradict the old generation by realizing that there’s not necessarily one right answer to strive toward.

What advice, maybe from a professor or mentor, has stuck with you throughout your academic career? 

Dr. Tondre and Dr. Scheckel have both at different points [told] me that I should advocate for myself when it comes to my ideas, even if they’re contradicted. When I’ve spoken to them about people disagreeing with ideas I have about literature or scholarship, they have both emphasized to me that if it’s something  I’m writing, that I should continue to advocate for my point. [That advice] has helped me not think of myself so much as a student, even though I am a student, but rather somebody who’s contributing to the field with my research.

Lastly, what are you reading at the moment? 

I just finished the new Hunger Games book (Sunrise on the Reaping). I actually just started re-reading Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. It’s part of my thesis, but it’s something I return to very frequently. Donna Tartt has a quote in The Secret History where she says, “it’s better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially”, and I do re-read The Secret History a lot. Every time I re-read it, I find something new that I never noticed about it before. It’s amazing, there are so many different lenses you can look at it through. I don’t think I’ll ever catch everything that Donna Tartt is trying to tell me. It never gets old, it’s so good.