User:Javkloot/sandbox

Current historiographical research has not reached accord on whether European salons should be included in the Enlightenment's public sphere. University of Chicago professor Dena Goodman insists on the inclusion of salons as they aided the proliferation of ideas during this time. She also notes the vital importance of women in salon culture making this institution one of the only places where females penetrated the public sphere. However, Antoine Lilti offers a revisionist narrative on this topic, disagreeing with Goodman's inclusion. He recognizes salons and salon culture as being apart of the greater 'Kingdom of Politesse". To him, salons appear as aristocratic institutions of privilege espousing ideals of civility and elite culture. Regardless of inclusion or exclusion, one major function of the European salon in regards to the Enlightenment was its service within a greater series of patronage networks for philosophes.