Dr Fergus Edwards
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drfergusedwards.bsky.social
Dr Fergus Edwards
@drfergusedwards.bsky.social
Lecturer in English at UTAS | ultrarunner | he/him
https://discover.utas.edu.au/Fergus.Edwards
Pinned
Very much my doctoral thesis.
One of the best interviews with Stoppard is here @parisreview.bsky.social , featuring his favorite curtain lines:

STOPPARD
“The son of a bitch stole my watch” [from The Front Page]—I quote from memory—and “You that way; we this way” [from Love’s Labour’s Lost].
We at the Review mourn the loss of Tom Stoppard (1937–2025). In celebration of his life and work, we’ve unlocked his Art of Theater interview from the archive. buff.ly/0waMbzK
November 30, 2025 at 7:17 PM
For a more detailed look at Stoppard, Wittgenstein, and performative linguistics, this is in 'Philosophy and Literature' 47.1:
"Stoppard's 'Philosophical Investigations'; or, Wittgenstein's 'Dogg's Hamlet'"

muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
November 30, 2025 at 7:00 PM
For those who want to know more about philosophy in Stoppard: "Wittgenstein: Stoppard's Muse" is in the Feb 2023 edition of @philosophynow.bsky.social
November 30, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Stoppard has died at 88.

The Brantley and Billington obituaries are the most notable so far; appreciative of the man and generously acknowledging their gradual reassessment of the philosophical and emotional content of his work.

Of which there is much more yet to be said.

Vale.
November 30, 2025 at 3:11 AM
Reposted by Dr Fergus Edwards
Just out. I've written a major report (with David Edgar) looking at the effect of Covid on British Theatre. You can download it here: www.britishtheatreconsortium.co.uk/britishtheat...
British Theatre Before and After Covid
www.britishtheatreconsortium.co.uk
November 26, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Reposted by Dr Fergus Edwards
Published next Monday with a beautiful introduction by Dan Rebellato that makes me teary and blush @nationaltheatre.org.uk @methuendrama.bsky.social @danrebellato.bsky.social
November 24, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Finn: Is this the appeal of ultrarunning? To push ourselves to a place where we stand face to face with the devil, but then to rise up to overcome it?

Jennings: laughs, calls it an interesting theory. For her there is something else.

Only Caitriona is right...

www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/n...
‘A drug that’s very safe and healthy‘: what ultrarunners can teach us about life | Sean Ingle
Caitriona Jennings ran 100 miles in just over 12 hours and wants other women to follow her example – ‘it’s not actually that difficult’
www.theguardian.com
November 18, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Reposted by Dr Fergus Edwards
Yep, you're all getting 'The Rot' by @evelynaraluen.bsky.social for Christmas and there *will* be a test...
November 8, 2025 at 4:18 AM
Harms done to people of the palawa and pakana when recognising genocide is elided with an assumed extinction are sensitively introduced in @lrb.co.uk

But: part of that harm is forgetting lutrawita and the palawa and pakana, and only using Tasmania and Tasmanians...

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Lorraine Daston · Kaboom! Slow-Motion Extinction
Historians who address such topics as extinction, which straddle the history of humans and of the Earth, face the...
www.lrb.co.uk
October 29, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Reposted by Dr Fergus Edwards
News report on our Read, Write, Publish day yesterday!
October 28, 2025 at 6:22 AM
Really enjoyed watching the third year show from @utas.edu.au's Theatre & Performance students this afternoon...

🎭

...thankyou Adrian, Anna, Autumn, Brooke, Laree, and Megan, and everyone involved!
October 24, 2025 at 5:46 AM
And we're down to the final runner!

🇦🇺 Phil Gore

He starts loop 114 alone and looking SO FRESH - if he makes it back within an hour he wins - but as last person standing he won't have a shot at his world record...

🇧🇪 Awesome Ivo Steyart finishes loop 113 and "refuses to continue"

#bigdogultra
October 23, 2025 at 5:00 AM
And we're down to the final two!

🇦🇺 Phil Gore
🇧🇪 Ivo Steyart

After 112 continuous loops - 4 days and 16 hours, 751.027km - they're out on loop 113...!

🇺🇸 Harvey Lewis timed out after a fantastic 111 loops to place third (not finish third: technically no-one ever finishes a backyard...)

#bigdogultra
October 23, 2025 at 4:06 AM
It's 🇬🇧 Sarah Perry's world record 🥳...

... but maybe don't tell her?

She's got a shot at the whole thing: 11 set out on loop 93, the world record is 119...

#bigdogultra

(96 'yards' will be 96 hours and 400miles: 4 days of 4.167miles every single hour)

🇺🇸 Megan Eckhert made an awesome 92 laps
October 22, 2025 at 9:15 AM
The race isn't over, but the womens's world record has just gone...

🇬🇧 Sarah Perry
🇺🇸 Megan Eckart

... are both through 88 'yards' (590km) - one yard an hour, every hour - as it looks like 14 athletes are still standing at the #bigdogultra

🥳
Big Dog’s Backyard Ultra 2025 Individual World Championship begins tomorrow morning at 0700 Central Time (US). You can follow along on YouTube, Facebook, Insta; links are at bigsbackyardultra.com. I’ll post the live tracking link tomorrow morning. #bigdogultra #backyardultra
Big's Backyard Ultra
There is no finish
bigsbackyardultra.com
October 22, 2025 at 4:40 AM
Reposted by Dr Fergus Edwards
Syllabus! A unit on home, empire, and the unheimlich. Texts from Victor Séjour, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Alice Perrin, Marcus Clarke, Rabindranath Tagore, Lettice Galbraith, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and more ...
October 21, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Phenomenal 24hr Running World Championship yesterday

Two women beat the previous world record...
+ Australia's Holly Ranson 273.058km

...and the new world record holder:
+ Great Britain's Sarah Webster 277.559km

🥳

www.irunfar.com/great-britai...
Great Britain's Sarah Webster Sets Women's 24-Hour World Record
Sarah Webster of Great Britain smashes the previous women's 24-hour world record.
www.irunfar.com
October 19, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Travelling from Tasmania to see Indian Ink at the Hampstead Theatre in December!

(Conveniently can see family at the same time)

The @leslietravers.bsky.social staging will be unusually relevant for a Stoppard; neither the radically determined set of a Jumpers nor the freedom of a Rosencrantz...
Happy to share that I am designing sets for Tom Stoppard’s ‘Indian Ink’ at the Hampstead Theatre (opening 3 December) and the Bath Theatre Royal. The production will be directed by Jonathan Kent and cast includes Felicity Kendal.
October 14, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Reposted by Dr Fergus Edwards
Love writing? Curious about how to get published? Teaching creative writing? Come join a vibrant community of writers at Read, Write, Publish: Hobart on Monday 27th October! www.facebook.com/share/19hBVu... @utas.edu.au
October 7, 2025 at 7:17 AM
The (idiosyncratic) Nobel Prize for Literature is announced tomorrow

One Australian has the best the odds (Gerald Murnane), another (Alexis Wright) is seen as a genuine possibility

(FWIW, if it's Tom Stoppard I'm here for all your media inquiries... 🤓)

lithub.com/here-are-the...
Here are the bookies’ odds for the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced next week, on Thursday, October 9. As always, to prepare myself (emotionally, I guess?), I consulted the UK betting site NicerOdds (nicer than w…
lithub.com
October 7, 2025 at 10:16 PM
2nd at the Coastal Pathway 64km (5h12)

(and a 50km PB (4h) en route)

🥳

Wonderful crew, good running weather, lovely day out all round

Now for a nap and all the food
October 5, 2025 at 2:03 AM
Running the first Coastal Pathway 64km Ultra on Sunday

🏃‍♂️

Latrobe -> Ulverstone -> Latrobe

Hoping for dry(ish) and still(ish)

🌦️

As always, it will be hardest on the (wonderful) crew...😬
October 3, 2025 at 5:21 AM
Looking forward to chatting about Kate Kruimink's novel 'Heartsease' with @helenshield.bsky.social on ABC Hobart, tonight at 21:15

2025 Tasmanian Premier's Prize for Fiction Winner, with, among other things, a fair bit of middle-class Hobart in it...
September 29, 2025 at 10:47 PM
"You can be an academic badass and a track goddess"

BA in English (Cam) *and* 200m silver medallist (22.14s) at the World Athletics Championships

If you need a sporting role model, you could do a lot worse than Amy Hunt...

www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/s...
‘You can be an academic badass and a track goddess’ – GB sprinter Amy Hunt revels in shock 200m silver
Hunt powers from sixth to second with the kind of fearless attitude that helped her come back from a quadriceps rupture
www.theguardian.com
September 19, 2025 at 9:35 PM