MACMILLAN Premodern Rulers and Postmodern Viewers: Gender, Sex, and Power in Popular Culture (Queenship and Power)

Pop culture portrayals of medieval and early modern monarchs are rife with tension between authenticity and modern mores, producing anachronisms such as a feminist Queen Isabel (in RTVE’s Isabel) and a lesbian Queen Christina (in The Girl King). This book examines these anachronisms as a dialogue between premodern and postmodern ideas about gender and sexuality, raising questions of intertemporality, the interpretation of history, and the dangers of presentism. Covering a range of famous and lesser-known European monarchs on screen, from Elizabeth I to Muhammad XII of Granada, this book addresses how the lives of powerful women and men have been mythologized in order to appeal to today’s audiences. The contributors interrogate exactly what is at stake in these portrayals; namely, our understanding of premodern rulers, the gender and sexual ideologies they navigated, and those that we navigate today.  Review “Premodern Rulers and Postmodern Viewers is a timely and important collection of essays. Throughout the book, its authors deliver a wide range of essays and methodologies (including transmedia, fandom, feminism, and visual culture); the resulting book offers thoughtful, insightful, and much-needed analysis of premodern women in modern representations. This will be an excellent book for both students and their teachers, offering both rigorous, cutting-edge scholarship as well as critical analysis which fills an important gap in existing scholarship.” (Andrew Elliott, Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies, University of Lincoln, UK) “This original and innovative collection of essays sheds new light on enduring questions and on the relationship between media and the history of queenship.” (Núria Silleras-Fernández, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA) From the Back Cover Pop culture portrayals of medieval and early modern monarchs are rife with tension between authenticity and modern mores, producing anachronisms such as a feminist Queen Isabel (in RTVE’s  Isabel) and a lesbian Queen Christina (in  The Girl King). This book examines these anachronisms as a dialogue between premodern and postmodern ideas about gender and sexuality, raising questions of intertemporality, the interpretation of history, and the dangers of presentism. Covering a range of famous and lesser-known European monarchs on screen, from Elizabeth I to Muhammad XII of Granada, this book addresses how the lives of powerful women and men have been mythologized in order to appeal to today’s audiences. The contributors interrogate exactly what is at stake in these portrayals; namely, our understanding of premodern rulers, the gender and sexual ideologies they navigated, and those that we navigate today.  About the Author Janice North is an independent scholar and specialist in medieval and Golden Age Iberian literature. Karl C. Alvestad is Lecturer in History at the University of Winchester, UK.  Elena Woodacre is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern European History at the University of Winchester, UK.