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A popular fad on American college campuses, a toga party is a particular kind of costume party at which everyone wears a toga, or a semblance thereof, normally made from a bedsheet. Started in the 1960s, the toga party concept originated within the fraternity, or "Greek" campus culture, hence the costume. Toga parties are notorious for featuring large amounts of alcoholic beverages, especially beer.
According to the book Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire by Anne Norton, a variation on the toga party is rumored to have been practiced by many of the early followers of Leo Strauss, most often designed as a homoerotic re-enactment of Plato's Symposium. Fuel was later added to these rumors by the behavior of Strauss's most famous disciple, Allan Bloom, who reportedly held these "toga parties" among his students at Cornell University.
Toga parties were depicted in the 1978 film Animal House, which propelled the ritual into a widespread and enduring practice.
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