During the early to mid-2010s, the humanities garnered mass appeal in South Korea, through goods and services like books and lectures. Although this was good news for some, others have criticized the rather superficial attempts at elevating the liberal arts and commodifying it to the degree of making it unrecognizable. Critics assert that while the boon did help to popularize the humanities, it also advertised it as general cultural refinement, rather than recognizing it as a diverse field consisting of a long history of sophisticated scholarship. This signals the beginning of change with the emergence of appreciation of the humanities field. Learning such subjects in depth have resurfaced in new ways within the media, with many young people contributing to this change as well. 

The Hankyoreh Special Story, “‘Studying shall salvage us’ – Those who relish the humanities themselves,” introduces people of all ages becoming active agents to study the humanities themselves without the institutional backing of formal academia. According to the article, Korea has continuously seen a decline in readership for once popular humanities magazines such as Changbi or Moonji: a clear indicator of how the humanities in Korea has been undergoing a steady decay. Yet now, agents studying the humanities and creating related content have newly emerged as if to save the humanities from its fall from grace. The story repor ts on the emergence of academic agents who have taken initiative. Extending from this anlaysis, The Granite Tower (GT) attempts to investigate the current state of humanities in Korea - is it truly at the brink of collapse, or is its value being rediscovered by new audiences? 

Knowledge Retail 

According to FNO. Vision, from years 2019 to 2021, 23 engineering departments were newly established, but 17 humanities departments were merged at universities of Seoul – and this is not surprising anymore. While 68.4 percent of the Korean population responded that the humanities is “needed in Korean society” in a 2018 survey, it is assumed by young people that majoring in the humanities will not guarantee an auspicious career trajectory, unless it is combined and integrated with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in some way. However, as the new media environment makes knowledge exchange gradually more fluid and easier to access, gaining insightful knowledge in the humanities has become an enriching pastime. A diversity of sources has come into existence, and people now freely access knowledge sources outside traditional sources or academia. The humanities field has become so diverse that it denies clear demarcation and usage, with classics to contemporary to STEM-adjacent fields that all vary in history and content. 

“Knowledge-retail” is a Korean term that describes those who “sell” knowledge as goods to the public by extracting information from a vast amount of sources that may mostly be inaccessible to the general public. This may range from books written by those “retailer” authors to YouTube videos. On digital platforms like YouTube or TikTok are many knowledge-retail channels that turned to the “snackification” of knowledge content, making the gyo-yang (a Korean term for refinement) genre of videos. Well-packaged knowledge has become a lucrative media product and efficient method to allow the democratic transfer of humanities knowledge that stirs discourse. 

Critics have also questioned whether these “knowledge products” demonstrate people’s desires to simply obtain the most useful information in the shortest amount of time possible, instead of spending time actively inquiring or mulling over topics. Shin Woo Seung, founder of independent publication and online community Philo-electro-ray criticizes that many philosophy channels remain at surface level: “It’s only when you take another step or two that understanding begins, and philosophy studies in Korea tend to remain at the level of signifiers.” 

Rising Star: Philosophy Studies 

Philo-electro-ray is a prominent example of a brand of media with a mission for in-depth learning of the humanities outside of the classic university setting. It provides translated academic philosophy papers for subscribers, and even offers education services via online streaming. With nearly twenty-thousand followers on Instagram, most subscribers of Philo-electro-ray are reportedly women in their 20s to 30s, with a wide appeal to a young audience. Founder Shin Woo Seung attributed the success of Philo-electro-ray to its distinction from elitist, insular Korean philosophy academia that focuses too narrowly on male continental philosophers, and academia’s failure to meet the demand for higher quality philosophy education. “True philosophical study begins with reading contemporary articles in academic journals, not with reading old texts called ‘humanities classics’ without any critical consciousness,” said Shin , adding that “commodification will kill philosophy in the long run” and “stunt the growth of citizenship.” 

The covers of its published reads are quite “MZ”-coded, with trendy, eye-catching designs, along with fun compositions and fonts. The teaching services also deal with topics less popular in Korean academia such as Peter Lamarque’s theory of cognitive values in the arts or Annemarie Mol’s study on the ontology in medical practice. Philosophy is gaining more traction in the young generation, even outside of digital spaces. For instance, the popularity of the independent philosophy bookstore, publisher, and learning community “soyoseoga” in Euljiro also reflects the rising relevance of learning philosophy as a hobby, along with the increased visibility of lovers of philosophy. It can be said that both aforementioned establishments partly rose to prominence through social media word of mouth. 

In his paper “The Two Cultures and The Crisis In The Humanities,” Professor David Arndt (Bilkent University) suggests that enhancing the understanding that a university education constitutes all “ethical, political, vocational, and spiritual dimensions” can be part of the solution to the humanities crisis. The Korean youth’s recent interest in learning the humanities through various online sources looks hopeful, in their apparent motivation to learn for the sake of learning. It is evident that the demand is there, and independents are making significant change that indicates that the humanities field is not dying a painful death; it is being regenerated, restructured, and consumed in new ways.