[KS] New Book: Critically Capitalist

[Kim, Bohyeong]

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce the publication of my new book, “Critically Capitalist: The Spirit of Asset Capitalism in South Korea<https://press.umich.edu/Books/C/Critically-Capitalist3>” (University of Michigan Press, 2025). It is open access and you can read the book online at https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.14418165. Please support the “Perspectives on Contemporary Korea” series by asking your libraries to order a copy. You can also use the discount code UMS25 to receive 30% off at the publisher website.

Critically Capitalist presents an ethnography of South Korea’s asset seekers, including amateur stock investors, real estate enthusiasts, and money coaches, to demonstrate how financialized asset capitalism is sustained. As they hunt for profit margins, rent, and dividends, they simultaneously critique capitalism and posit their pursuit of assets as a form of resistance. Bohyeong Kim theorizes this new spirit of capitalism in South Korea as “critical capitalism,” arguing that it reflects the popular discontent with both national development and financial neoliberalism. As a paradoxical critique and legitimation, Bohyeong Kim argues that critical capitalism valorizes the capitalist economy not through a triumphant narrative, but by highlighting the emotional wounds, destroyed communities, and oppressive tactics of modern capitalism.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. Introduction to Critical Capitalism
Chapter 2: The Entrepreneurial Communitarianism of Aspiring Millionaires
Chapter 3: Anti-Capitalist Investing
Chapter 4. Emotional Wounds
Chapter 5. Flipping Homes, Flipping Victimhood: The Social Reproduction of Foreclosure Investors
Chapter 6: Single and Wanna Be Rich
Epilogue
Methodological Appendix

Best,
Bohyeong




Bohyeong Kim
Assistant Professor of Communication Studies
Vanderbilt University
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