Matthew Cowin,
Staff Writer
Visiting Assistant Professor of English Dr. Oluwafunmilayo Akinpelu (Funmi Omo Moji) begins her first year at Sewanee with scholarship focus on global Black Anglophone literatures. She told The Sewanee Purple that her personal approach to teaching includes a diversification of media platforms and classroom approaches to engage student curiosity.
Originally from Lagos, Nigeria, Akinpelu credited her mother, a photographer, for helping her have access to quality education. “As a photographer who had to work extra hard to establish her career because had little access to formal education, she went above and beyond to ensure we had educational opportunities she wished she had had and the freedom to pursue our own paths based on personal interests.”
For Akinpelu, this path would lead to broad exposure to literature and history. She studied Euro-American literature through mandatory courses at Obafemi Awolowo University. However, it took until her fourth year of undergraduate education to be exposed to African literature. “I found it troubling that we had to learn more about Euro-American literary traditions than we did about African literature in all its vagaries.” This shaped Akinpelu’s interest in studying global black Anglophone literature through a historiographical lens.
Akinpelu reflected on her commitment to situating African literatures within a global context: “paying particular attention to contemporary developments beyond the legacies of colonialism.” She received her bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Obafemi Awolowo University, a master’s in Comparative History from Central European University and a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Alabama.
For her, the diversification of media platforms highlights international comparisons: a pursuit that has shaped her academic work. “I actively study anime, AI-generated art by Black creatives, and literary practices on social media as not just extensions of traditional print culture but extra-literary forms in their own right. Through these media, I explore connections between African literature and developments in African American and East Asian literary, artistic and popular cultures. My research often contributes to conversations about race, feminism, futurisms and technological changes.”
In the classroom, Akinpelu engages in many different teaching methods to appeal to student interests. “In my classes, students often engage in creative exercises like free drawing and freewriting alongside other meaningful intellectual activities. We also visit the University archives, go on tours and field trips and engage in library scavenger hunts so students annotate scholarly sources to enhance their learning beyond the classroom.”
Akinpelu described her role as a facilitator of student interests, bringing her own expertise into conversation with students’ ideas and perspectives. “Literature is more than just words. Much of my teaching involves blending what I know with what my students are interested in to create meaningful intellectual connections. For instance, when I ask them to explore a Shakespearean text, we might begin with a major theme like love, but asking them to explore the text through their own perspectives open up new ways of thinking about it through themes like climate change, gender, sexuality and so on.”
For Akinpelu, her experiential learning approach to teaching moves beyond the role of the teacher. As someone who studies public humanities, she often collaborates with students and community members to help them communicate their ideas through exhibitions. “I have certificates in museum studies, visual theory and practice, and archival and evidentiary practices. My training in these fields allows me to explore writing across multiple spheres.” Leveraging public humanities as an approach to presenting the curriculum to diverse audiences reflect Akinpelu’s commitment to recognizing the individuality of each student’s learning experience.
This emphasis on the individual within a community also informed Akinpelu’s museum exhibitions. For example, Still Life: I’m Still Life, a photography exhibition she curated in 2026 at the University of Alabama, depicted parents of international students reflecting on their careers, lives and crafts. “The exhibition is headlined by my mother, whose career as a photographer has evolved through different phases and changes shaped by her experiences as a mother and a single woman living in Nigeria.”
Her supervisor at the University of Alabama, Dr. Cassander Smith, said her public community works also relate deeply to her own scholarship. “One of what makes her a valued scholar is that her research is not simply theoretical; it is also applied and deeply anchored in community collaboration. She embodies the best of what humanities scholarship can achieve when it is both intellectually rigorous and publicly engaged.”
As a public humanist and community-centered teacher, Akinpelu said she feels at home at Sewanee. “I was always told I’d do well teaching at a liberal arts college, and Sewanee has proven that to be true. It feels wonderful knowing I am able to connect directly with most students and know firsthand how my teaching impacts their lives. At Sewanee, the school is the community, and the community is the school.”