She holds a PhD from the Complutense University of Madrid and is a professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Valencia. Her work focuses on the early Franco era from a culturalist perspective, combining social sciences and cultural history. Her main line of research is the analysis of the gendered dimension of the idea of nation during the early years of the dictatorship, exploring how gender not only serves to shape individuals’ identities but also to articulate national political ideas. She is currently co-director (with Julián Sanz and Ismael Saz) of the “History and Memory of Francoism” collection, published by Publicacions de la Universitat de València, and director of the INTERFRANQ research group at the University of Valencia.
Her recent publications include:
- Zira Box, La nación viril. Género, fascismo y regeneración nacional en la victoria franquista, Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 2025.
- Zira Box: “Género, nación y virilidad en el primer franquismo: algunas propuestas para el análisis”, en Diego Santos Sánchez y M. Serrano Aguilar (eds.), “El niño mirará al mundo y la niña al hogar”. Literatura y género bajo el franquismo, Madrid, Iberoamericana Vervuert, 2024, pp. 37-57.
- Zira Box, “The Spanish Anti-Liberal Right and the question of gender, 1931-1975”, en Andrew Dowling (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Spanish History, Nueva York, Routledge, 2024, pp. 420-430.
- Zira Box, “Virility, fascism and regeneration in post-Civil War Spain: On interpretations of literary Romanticism under the Franco regime”, Gender & History, Early view (24-6-2024). https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12800
- Zira Box y César Rina (eds.), Franquismo en caleidoscopio. Perspectivas y estudios transdisciplinares sobre la dictadura, Granada, Comares, 2020.
Ismael Saz, Zira Box, Toni Morant y Julián Sanz (eds.), Reactionary Nationalists, Fascists and Dictatorships in the XXth Century, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.