The Humanities: The Next Frontier for Korea's Chaebol

South Korea's big family-controlled conglomerates have identified the humanities as an antidote to their paralysis of innovation.

Designed with a Ghibliesque imagination and backed by ample funding in every step of its construction, Starfield Library in Gangnam, Seoul, instantly became a requisite tourist attraction when it opened to great fanfare in 2017. It may well also be the most instagrammed library in South Korea. The 2,800-square meter space was built by the Shinsegae Group, a retail behemoth that owns E-Mart and Shinsegae Department Store—the country’s equivalent of Walmart and Macy’s respectively. (In the southeastern city of Busan, the company also runs a complex that is considered the world’s largest…

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• Vincent Huang

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