Monarchies are facing public demands for modernization and adapting to changing societal, political, and media environments. This book proposes new directions in the research of contemporary European monarchies and offers innovative perspectives on trans/national royal public interactions and (semi-)fictional representations of monarchs. Its case studies address historic and recent developments, including newly invented royal traditions, media depictions, Meghan Markle's impact on the image of the British monarchy, and the royal family's role in Brexit negotiations. With its interdisciplinary analyses, the book reflects current academic, societal, and popular cultural interest in royalty.

Christina Jordan, an M.A. in English and German Studies as well as Cultural Anthropology from Goethe University Frankfurt. Her dissertation project analyzes Queen Elizabeth II's Golden and Diamond Jubilee as staged media events. She taught Literature and Culture at the Department of English at Justus Liebig University Giessen, coordinated an international PhD program, and has published on the intersection of monarchy, media and memory as well as on contemporary artistic depictions of the British monarchy.
Imke Polland, born in 1988, is research assistant responsible for internationalization at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) at Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany and coordinator of the European PhD Network "Literary and Cultural Studies". She currently works on her doctoral thesis entitled "'For Better, For Worse?' Royal Heirs Between Continuity and Change in Media Representations of British Royal Weddings (2005 and 2011)". Her research interests include royal studies, media events, cultural narratology and Brexit Literature as well as new formalist approaches in literary studies.