CARTAGENA THINKS: JUAN EVARISTO VALLS BOIX `THE RIGHT TO BEAUTIFUL THINGS´

CARTAGENA THINKS: JUAN EVARISTO VALLS BOIX `THE RIGHT TO BEAUTIFUL THINGS´

“I want freedom, the right to express myself, the right of everyone to beautiful and radiant things.” Emma Goldman’s declaration, which defined anarchism, speaks not only of a political movement but also contains a philosophy where beauty, pleasure, and equality are essential elements of human existence.
Inspired by Paul Lafargue and Hannah Arendt, Juan Evaristo Valls Boix makes this conviction the basis for developing a set of social policies that nurture life where it is deemed useless and unproductive. With luminous and combative prose, the author defends essential rights—such as the right to be lazy, to strike, or to retire—not as concessions from the system, but as radical acts of resistance to capitalist alienation.

Juan Evaristo Valls Boix is ​​a writer and professor of Philosophy of Culture at the Complutense University of Madrid. He has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Riverside, and has been a visiting researcher at institutions such as the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, the University of Copenhagen, and Stony Brook University (SUNY). He holds two doctorates, one in Contemporary Philosophy and the other in Literary Theory, and is a member of the Post-Foundational Contemporary Thought research group.
His research focuses on laziness and the rejection of work in late capitalism, with particular attention to the politics of affect and contemporary French philosophy. His publications include the essays *Metaphysics of Laziness* (NED Ediciones, 2022), *The Right to Beautiful Things* (Ariel, 2025), and *JOMO: The Pleasure of Losing* (Anagrama, 2026). He is also the editor of *Capital Pain* and *Common Pleasure*, both published by NED Ediciones (2026).

DATE: December 17, 2026

TIME: 8:00 PM

LOCATION: Josefina Soria Library. The Luzzy