Introduction This Is Not an Introduction against the Monarchy.

This collection of essays explores the ways in which Iberian cultural production has constructed kings and queens since 1975. Our focus is the royal figure who inherits their status and power through 'blood' and justifies their power invoking the transcendental mystique of monarchic sovereignty. In one way or another, the figures of Juan Carlos I and his son Felipe VI permeate all cultural representations of monarchical rule produced during the democratic period; and these representations shape our political understanding of the two kings and become a site to contest hegemonic understandings of Spanishness, post-Francoist Spain and Iberian political communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]