ATC Speakers 2025
Hope Which Does Not Disappoint
Paper 1
Andrew Griffin is a Doctoral Candidate in Classics at Dalhousie University and is writing on Plato's understanding of belief or opinion (δόξα) and its place in the philosophical or spiritual itinerary. Andrew has no less interest in Late Ancient and Medieval philosophy and theology, and his M.A was on the spiritual itinerary and its inclusion in the divine life in Anselm's of Canterbury's Proslogion. Andrew has had the privilege of teaching classes at Dalhousie and volunteering for Burnside Humanities and Halifax Humanities.
Speaker
In 2013, Drew Badgley completed an International Development Studies Specialist Undergraduate Programme with a Major in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus. After a few years working for youth-serving organisations in Toronto's Regent Park Community, he returned to the classroom and completed a Master of Theological Studies at Wycliffe College in 2018. This shift of focus toward theological studies came about through encountering Classical Anglicanism at S. Bartholomew's Anglican Church in Toronto, where he has been an active parishioner since 2015. During this beginning phase of his theological studies, he realised that he needed to seek a better formation in ancient languages and thought. In 2022 he was awarded an undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto with a Specialist in Mediaeval Studies, a Major in Classics, and a Minor in Philosophy. He then continued his work on ancient languages and thought at the University of Toronto Classics Department in an MA programme, which he finished in August 2024. Since September 2024 he has been working on a MA in Classics at the Dalhousie Classics Department, and he has been a parishioner of S. George's Round Church.
Respondant
Paper 2
Hope Which Does Not Disappoint
Dr. Daniel Driver earned a PhD in Divinity (St Mary’s College, University of St Andrews, 2009), where he studied Old Testament; and a BA in English Literature (Wheaton College, 2002). Dr. Driver joined the faculty of AST in 2016 and was promoted to Professor in 2021. Prior to serving with AST, he taught Hebrew and Old Testament to undergraduates in Toronto. Before graduate school, he taught humanities to high school students in Kansas. Dr. Driver presently enjoys serving church and academy in Atlantic Canada, in a broadly and self-consciously ecumenical environment.
Speaker
Hope Which Does Not Disappoint
Dr. Patricia Robertson holds a BA from the University of Winnipeg, a Master’s of Christian Studies from Regent College in Vancouver, and an MA and PhD from the University of Ottawa. Her doctoral thesis was on the sermons of John Donne; she has published on Donne, Milton, and Joseph Conrad. She taught in the Foundation Year Programme at the University of King’s College, and then was the King’s Registrar for 12 years. She is currently teaching part-time in the English department of Dalhousie University.
Respondant
Paper 3
Dr. Matthew Vanderkwaak is a faculty fellow in the Foundation Year Program. He completed his MA in Classics at Dalhousie studying late-ancient Neoplatonism and wrote his PhD dissertation, Noble soul and the Metaphysics of Celestial Life, at University College Dublin. His dissertation examines the reception of Greek and Arabic Neoplatonism in the Latin commentary tradition on the Book of Causes. Matthew is interested in the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions, the religions of the late-ancient world, and mysticism. Mattthew is also a poet, visual artist and musician. You can read more about his work at matthewjoel.substack.com.
Speaker
Hope Which Does Not Disappoint
Justin Wollf completed his MA in Classics at Dalhousie studying the role of the physical in Augustine's return to God in the Confessions. He is currently working as a commercial underwriter.
Respondant
Paper 4
Hope Which Does Not Disappoint
Dr. Luke Togni completed a PhD in Religious Studies (Historical Theology) at Marquette University. His research has focused on the intersection of the ancient and medieval worlds and the sharing and transformation of ideas between Pagan, Jewish, and Christian thought.
Luke previously taught courses in Latin, Classical Mythology, Theology, and Franciscanism at Marquette University and the University of St. Francis (Ft. Wayne, IN). He is currently a Research Fellow for the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University in New York state.
Speaker
Aidan Ingalls is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at the University of Guelph. He is currently writing his thesis on Plotinus and the conversion of vision.
Respondant
Paper 5
The Rev’d Canon LCol (Rtd) Dr. Gary Thorne, Dunelm, M.M.M., grew up in Saint John, NB, Canada, in the 1950s in an urban poverty from which he took refuge in the inner life. Before retirement, concurrent with twenty-three years as chaplain in the Canadian Military, Thorne served as rector of rural and urban parishes for twenty-five years, and as university chaplain for sixteen years. Thorne came to know divine friendship and the continuing conversion of the soul through the sermons of Dr Robert Crouse in the late 1970s. In response, he currently promotes the legacy of the teaching of Robert Crouse for the renewal of the Church.
Speaker
Dr Thomas Curran is an Inglis Professor at the University of King’s College. His chief research interest has always been early 19th-Century German philosophy, with a particular emphasis on Hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of religion at the University of Berlin. More recently, his emphasis has shifted to questions of “intertextuality” in Dante’s Divine Comedy — that is, how Dante uses (and transforms) his great precursors (Aristotle, Vergil, St Thomas Aquinas) both to shape his epic poem and to give it a distinctive structure. Tom is always interested in exploring how modern popular culture and practices can be informed (and reformulated) by reference to the great philosophical and literary tradition that we have inherited from the ancient Greeks. His latest project is Fake or Facsimile, found at recherché.com.
Respondant
Paper 6
Neil G. Robertson is an associate professor in the Foundation Year, Early Modern Studies and Contemporary Studies programs. Dr Robertson graduated from the University of King’s College in 1985 with a BA in Political Science. He went on to take an M.A. in Classics at Dalhousie University, and in 1995 completed his PhD at Cambridge in Social and Political Science. He is past director of the Foundation Year Program and is past director of the Early Modern Studies Program, which he helped to found. Dr Robertson was the King’s College dean of residence in 1989-1990 and has served as chair of faculty.
Speaker
Conference Preacher
Fr. Walter Hannam is a priest of the Anglican Diocese of Toronto where he serves as Vicar of St Bartholomew’s Anglican Church in Regent Park and as an Associate Priest of the Cathedral Church of James. A native of the Annapolis Valley, he was ordained both deacon and priest in the Diocese of Saskatchewan. Following studies in classical and biblical languages and classical, patristic, and mediaeval philosophy at King’s, and Dalhousie, and A.S.T., he completed his PhD in Historical Theology (Mediaeval) through the Theology Department at Boston College. His dissertation on the theological method of Honorius Augustodunensis in his treatise Inevitabile was based upon his critical edition of two distinct versions of Honorius’s treatise, which he is preparing for publication in the Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis. Fr. Hannam taught dogmatic, historical, ascetical, and moral theology, as well as Anglican history and theology at the College of Emmanuel & St Chad in Saskatoon, where he held the Chair of Theology & Anglican Studies; he was also the coordinator of the College’s Great Books Seminar and a member of the Classical, Mediaeval, and Renaissance Studies faculty of the University of Saskatchewan. He is currently an Adjunct Professor of the Ecclesiastical Faculty of St Augustine’s Seminary of Toronto, where he teaches graduate seminars in Patristics and intermediate Latin Language. He is an Associate Professor (status only) of the Centre for Medieval Studies of the University of Toronto and the Book Reviews Editor in Historical Theology for the Anglican Theological Review.
Book Study Leader
Elizabeth King is raising three young children with her husband, Evan, in the fishing town of Lockeport, Shelburne County, Nova Scotia. She studied the Liberal Arts at St John’s College, Maryland, and Classics at Cambridge University. For the MA in Classics at Dalhousie, she wrote on Plotinus’s fourfold gradation of virtue and its relation to the soul of the world.