LEADER
After a bewildered youth, capped, but neither clarified nor corrected, by undergraduate work in history, philosophy, and literature, graduate degrees in Liberal Arts and Eastern Classics at St. John’s College, and Greek and Latin (and shouted English) in New York City, Eric Stull taught high-school history and English for five years. He has taught writing and literature in nine colleges and universities for the last nineteen, during which time he has knowingly, shamelessly committed acts of liberal-arts adjunctery (which apparently have not yet been forbidden in Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, where he has done the denominated deeds, though may soon become so if present levels of enlightenment in the administration of public higher education hold, as looks likely). He has lived in the unofficial republic of Baltimore, Maryland, for the last twenty years, has four children, three of whom are no longer children, and one cat with an oracular name kept safely hidden.
READINGS
The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith
(Hogarth Press, 2016)
ISBN-13: 978-1101906118
Greek Lessons by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith
(Hogarth Press, 2023)
ISBN-13: 9780593595442
SEMINAR OVERVIEW
“Would they seem like one body, a hybrid of plant, animal, and human?” — The Vegetarian
“Language, by comparison, is an infinitely more physical way to touch.” — Greek Lessons
In the world of other human forms, the forms of human relation are eating, sex, speaking, seeing — sex and speech being the most profound phenomena of bodily and psychic contact. All manner of questions are raised about body and soul by the rivetingly intense inwardness of the novels’ characters, who mesmerize us by the achingly human pathos of their strangeness. Can one’s humanity demand of a human being the alteration of one’s human form? What, after all, is a human form, exactly? Does the human form embody – ensoul – an awareness of its own incompleteness, its own inadequacy?
But to what purpose is it inadequate? Does the human form seek its own self-transcendence? Does it want to stretch out beyond itself to take on another form – that of a vegetable, say?
Is speech – the poetic and philosophic speech of a strange, ancient tongue – a way to go beyond the limits of one’s own imperfection? Do we become more perfect by becoming less of what we obviously are and more of something else?
These are just a few of the questions we will take on in a close reading of The Vegetarian, the story of Yeong-hye, a part-time graphic artist and homemaker in modern-day Seoul; and Greek Lessons, an exploration of language through the tale of a mute woman who starts studying ancient Greek.
TORONTO PURSUITS 2026 PRICING
The registration cost for Toronto Pursuits 2026 is C$1850. All seminars are C$75 off through 11:59 p.m. Eastern, January 3, 2026. Sale prices are automatically applied.
All orders placed by 11:59 p.m. Eastern, January 3, 2026, also get a complimentary Toronto Summer Music Festival ticket. Participants who register after January 3 can purchase a concert ticket at our group rate, typically around C$80. The concert we will be attending will be announced in early spring 2026.
Bring a new friend and save even more! Take $100 off your registration for every new friend you bring to Toronto Pursuits. Your friend also saves $100 on their registration. Choose your discount from the dropdown menu based on the number of friends who also plan to register, and let us know your friend’s name in the order notes.
The fine print: To get the bring-a-friend discount, your friend must not have registered for any previous Toronto Pursuits seminar in any year. Your friend must register by May 31, 2026, or Classical Pursuits will apply the nondiscounted price to your final payment. Limit one $100 discount per participant for being referred as a new friend. For example, if person A brings new friend B, person C cannot also claim friend B for the bring-a-friend discount. If friend B brings new friend D, friend B qualifies for $100 discount for being a new referral, and an additional $100 for referring new friend D. Classical Pursuits reserves the right to make all decisions about discount eligibility.
Toronto Pursuits 2026
See the Toronto Pursuits 2026 page for full details on the program schedule, health and safety, booking your accommodations, terms and conditions, and more.
Quote from The Guardian, October 2024
Image credit: Humus Glitch on Wikipedia/Creative Commons
