nireEHU JOSE JAVIER DIAZ FREIRE
- Knowledge area
- Contemporary History
- Department
- Contemporary History
- Centre
- Faculty of Social and Communication Sciences
- Electronic mail
- josejavier.diazfreire@ehu.eus
A tenured professor at the Department of Contemporary History of the UPV/EHU, José Javier Díaz Freire is also the director of the ‘Modern Experience’ research group.
Díaz Freire’s research career has revolved around the quest for a theoretical and methodological renewal of historiography, with the aim of improving its performance as a tool for social transformation; hence, his initial critical reflections on structuralist Marxism and subsequent shift towards language, which allowed for the incorporation of the gender perspective and would ultimately lead to the history of emotions.
His first studies, which addressed the Second Spanish Republic, are outstanding for their use of a then innovative methodology, influenced by the so-called ‘linguistic turn’, in social sciences and liberal arts. His subsequent research endeavours have continued to focus on that commitment to the theoretical renewal of historiography in line with what is now known as ‘post-social history’, but subjecting the discursive paradigm to a critique based on the concepts of body, emotion, and experience, and enriching it with the gender perspective.
Another of Díaz Freire’s lines of research continues the study of modernity from the perspective of the history of emotions. His most recent publications address the transformations experienced by masculinity and complement, from the gender perspective, the study of the experience of modern society.