Heidi Mehrkens – författare

This volume brings together a fascinating selection of studies exploring the soft power tools used by heirs to the throne in order to enhance the communication of monarchies with their audiences during the nineteenth-century. How we perceive royals and their dynasties today – as families, as celebrities, as charitable figureheads of society or as superfluous relics of a bygone age – has deep roots in the monarchical cultures of nineteenth-century Europe. By focusing on the role played by heirs to the throne, this volume offers an original perspective on the ability of monarchies to persuade sceptical audiences, nourish positive emotions and thereby strengthen the position of each dynasty within its respective nation. Using examples from Britain, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, Greece, Sweden, Norway and Prussia, an international team of experts analyzes and explains the development of the very soft power tools which are still being used by Ruling Houses today.

Staging Authority: Presentation and Power in Nineteenth-Century Europe is a comprehensive handbook on how the presentation, embodiment, and performance of authority changed in the long nineteenth century. It focuses on the diversification of authority: what new forms and expressions of authority arose in that critical century, how traditional authority figures responded and adapted to those changes, and how the public increasingly participated in constructing and validating authority. It pays particular attention to how spaces were transformed to offer new possibilities for the presentation of authority, and how the mediatization of presence affected traditional authority. The handbook’s fourteen chapters draw on innovative methodologies in cultural history and the aligned fields of the history of emotions, urban geography, persona studies, gender studies, media studies, and sound studies.

Staging Authority: Presentation and Power in Nineteenth-Century Europe is a comprehensive handbook on how the presentation, embodiment, and performance of authority changed in the long nineteenth century. It focuses on the diversification of authority: what new forms and expressions of authority arose in that critical century, how traditional authority figures responded and adapted to those changes, and how the public increasingly participated in constructing and validating authority. It pays particular attention to how spaces were transformed to offer new possibilities for the presentation of authority, and how the mediatization of presence affected traditional authority. The handbook’s fourteen chapters draw on innovative methodologies in cultural history and the aligned fields of the history of emotions, urban geography, persona studies, gender studies, media studies, and sound studies.