February 14, 2023 /

Salon De Morte: A literary collective

(Mi Serenata, Robert Bryce, 2020)

Salons have played a vital social role throughout history in the communicating, fostering and sharing of information and new ideas.  Initially established by women, the salon served not only as a means of self-education and access to information, but as a form of resistance by women against social constraints which restricted their full participation in society.  These included access to formal education, to enlightened conversation and to intellectual discourse.

Facilitating and hosting the salon was a central binding figure, a noblewoman who was termed the salonniere.  It was the salonniere who hosted the salon in her home, determined topics of conversation such as philosophy, politics, religion, and/or the arts and sciences, and who ensured that all present could gather freely to openly discuss and debate liberal ideas and current affairs.

Salons not only provided a unique forum in which women’s voices could be heard and ideas shared, but they fostered cross-class and cross-cultural communication between both male and female social groups.  There are records of salons dating back to the early 1600s, one of which was a literary circle hosted by the Marquess de Rambouillet, who at the time brought together Paris’ intelligentsia and literary set.

In similar fashion to the historical salon and literary circle, a contemporary salon has come into being, and while it’s presence will be digital, it will serve a similar purpose as its forebears’ have done.  In this instance, the salon is metaphorically represented by the new business entity, “Salon De Morte: A literary collective”.  The salon will have a uniquely Australian presence and will bring together like-minded writers to disseminate and share ideas relating to the Work, and to spiritual growth and development in contemporary Western society.  The business was conceived by me in 2022 and its corresponding web presence will be launched, also by myself, in 2023.

This is an exciting moment, and I look forward to sharing Salon De Morte: A literary collective, and all that it offers, with you in the near future.

Michele T Knight Written by:

Dr Michele Knight is a Social Worker, Social Scientist, researcher and independent scholar. Her interest and research in the end-of-life has its origin in the lived experiences of her own bereavements, her near-death and shared-death events, the returning deceased and attitudinal responses to those experiences. Since 2006, she has been extensively involved in community development, support and advocacy in both a professional and community services/voluntary capacity in the areas of bereavement and grief, hospital pastoral care, and academic lecturing/tutoring. Her PhD, Ways of Being: The alchemy of bereavement and communique, explores the lived experience of bereavement, grief, spirituality and unsought encounters with the returning deceased.

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