Brian Stoddart
Brian Stoddart is Professor Emeritus at La Trobe University where he served first as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) then as Vice-Chancellor. Trained as an historian of India, he became a founding member at the Centre for Sports Studies at the University of Canberra and established what was possibly the first degree in sports journalism. His Saturday Afternoon Fever: Sport in the Australian Culture became a staple text and he focused also on the role of sport, especially cricket, across the British Empire. “Sport, Cultural Imperialism, and Colonial Response” was among the first sports-based articles to appear in mainstream journals like Comparative Studies in Society and History and remains much cited. Brian Stoddart co-authored a numbers of works on sport including Liberation Cricket: West Indies Cricket Culture with the now Professor Sir Hilary Beckles. He went on to write biography and memoir as well as history, and is now an award-listed crime fiction writer and an award-winning screenwriter.