Simulating an Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment Salon: Embodied Experience and Scholarly Investigation

Authors

Jennifer M. Jones, Rutgers University (History Department)Follow

Author Biography

I am an associate professor in the history department at Rutgers University. I teach courses on the Enlightenment, the Old Regime and the French Revolution, and the history of fashion and design. My first book was Sexing La Mode: Gender, Fashion, and Commercial Culture in Old Regime France (Berg: 2004). I am currently finishing a book on Thérèse Levasseur, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s partner and starting a new project on fashion and art schools in the 19th and 20th century.

Abstract

This paper reflects on my experience simulating an 18th-century French salon for an academic conference and in an undergraduate classroom. I argue that simulating a salon is heuristically as well as pedagogically useful and allows historians to test hypotheses about the nature of the salon and the role of the salonnière proposed by scholars such as Dena Goodman and Antoine Lilti. The essay also engages with some of the important insights gained from feminist and performance theory regarding historical reenactment. Thus I caution against naive attempts to reenact the past and instead suggest practices that foster open-ended conversations about the nature of the Enlightenment and our relationship to the past.

Keywords

Salons, 18th-century France, simulation, pedagogy

Recommended Citation

Jones, Jennifer M. (2024) "Simulating an Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment Salon: Embodied Experience and Scholarly Investigation," ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830: Vol.14: Iss.2, Article 3.
http://doi.org/10.5038/2157-7129.14.2.1407
Available at: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/abo/vol14/iss2/3