Editors
& Other Project Participants
LCol (rtd) Canon Dr Gary Thorne
General Editor
(Dunelm, M.M.M.) Gary Thorne was born into a brutal urban poverty of the Canadian Maritimes. His acquisition of several M.A.s (Divinity ‘79, Contemporary Philosophy ‘81, Classics ‘83), as well as a Ph.D. in Byzantine Theology from Durham, England, were all in the interests of a lifelong pastoral ministry with the marginalized and resistance to the injustices of political, economic, academic and religious institutions. Thorne served twenty-three years as chaplain in the Canadian Army, retiring as LCol. Concurrent with military duty he served as Rector of rural and urban parishes for twenty-five years, and as university chaplain in two universities for sixteen years. He is the recipient of three honorary degrees from Canadian Universities, both the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals, the United Nations Disengagement Observation Force Medal, The Canadian Forces Peacekeeping Medal, and he is a Member of the Military Order of Merit. He came to know divine friendship and to understand the continuing conversion of the soul by hearing the sermons of Robert Crouse in the late 1970s.
Dr Stephen Blackwood
General Editor
Stephen Blackwood is the founding President of Ralston College, a new university in Savannah, Georgia, dedicated to the revival of humanistic inquiry. He grew up on a small farm in Prince Edward Island, Canada; and it was not far from there, as a student at the University of King's College, that he had the privilege of studying with Robert Crouse. It was as Fr Crouse's student that he began the work on the Roman poet-philosopher Boethius which would later be published by Oxford University Press as The Consolation of Boethius as Poetic Liturgy.
Dr Neil G Robertson
General Editor
Neil Robertson is Professor of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of King's College in Halifax, Canada and recently stepped down as Director of its Foundation Year Program. He was also the founding Director of the Early Modern Studies Programme at King's. He did his undergraduate degree at the University of King’s College and his doctorate is from Cambridge University in Social and Political Sciences. His publications include Leo Strauss: An Introduction (2021) and, as co-editor, Hegel and Canada(2018), Descartes and the Modern (2008) and Philosophy and Freedom: The Legacy of James Doull, (2003). His writings focus on the question of the nature of “modernity”; he has written on Augustine, Dante, Luther, Hooker, Shakespeare, Descartes, Locke, Montesquieu and Rousseau, as well as more contemporary thinkers such as George Grant, Leo Strauss, and John Milbank. Very much as an amateur, Neil sings opera and has sung bass roles such as the Commendatore in Don Giovanni and Sarastro in The Magic Flute.
Dr Susan Dodd
Editor
Susan Dodd is an Associate Professor of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of King's College in Halifax, Canada. Her publications include The Ocean Ranger: Remaking the Promise of Oil, and, as co-editor, Hegel and Canada: Unity of Opposites?, and Each Book A Drum: Ten Years of Halifax Humanities. She holds a doctorate in Sociology from York University, and her writing focuses on Canadian political thought. She is currently writing a study of the Social Gospel roots of Canada's welfare state.
Erin Wagner
Administrative Assistant
Erin Wagner grew up in Nova Scotia. She enrolled in the Foundation Year Programme at University of King's College in 2004 where she met her husband and attended Fr Crouse's last lecture on Saint Augustine. She graduated with a BA in English Literature from Dalhousie in 2009. Besides spending most of her time raising children, Erin works as Administrative Assistant for this project.
Rhea Bright
Images of Pilgrimage Study Guide Author
Rhea Bright holds a B.A. from the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and an M.A. in Classics from Dalhousie University, also in Halifax. Her Classical studies involved Latin and Greek, as well as classical and medieval literature, philosophy and theology. King's Foundation Year Program and the Dalhousie Classics department formed and nurtured what because a life-long love of the classics and a deep appreciation of the contribution of the ancient world to whatsoever is good and true and beautiful. Rhea also holds a Bachelor of Education from Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S. Rhea taught Ancient and Medieval Humanities at the University of Central Oklahoma for nine years, and then taught Latin, Logic, Bible, and ancient literature and history over the course of ten years at The Academy of Classical Christian Studies in Oklamhoma City. Since 2020, she has been teaching in the Canterbury House of Studies within Schole Academy, an organization that offers online courses for home-schooling families. Rhea is married to Father Patrick Bright, an ordained Anglican priest who served for over 24 years at All Souls' Episcopal Church in Oklahoma City and is now retired from full-time ministry. Having raised their five sons, they have now returned home to Nova Scotia, where they live in an old family home.