I I Research (about Nigerian literature in relation to the rest of the world); I Teach. I Curate. I Write.
I am a Nigerian literary scholar, curator, writer, and digital humanities practitioner whose work sits at the intersection of contemporary African literature, museum studies, feminist and futurist thought, and collaborative digital storytelling. I work in the fields of African and African American studies, global Black Anglophone literatures, gender and sexuality studies as well as cultural studies, digital media studies, and museum studies. I also have extensive professional experience curating performances of scholarship and art, supported by a certificate in Museum Studies. I have successfully defended her dissertation, Naija-Lit-to-the-World: 21st Century Subcultures and the Reconfiguration of Nigerian Literary History, at the University of Alabama (UA). This project examines twenty-first-century Nigerian literary and digital subcultures as globally mobile, theoretically generative sites of cultural production.
A committed, student-centered teacher, I teach courses in English Composition, American Literature, African American Literature, and others, in ways that integrate literary studies, visual culture, and media analysis, fostering critical thinking and cultural literacy. I am also an active independent curator of arts. An advocate of creative pedagogy and the power of art to foster meaningful connections between classroom learning and life-living, I actively involve my students in artistic and public humanities projects, including the Remix exhibition, organized on the platform of UA’s First-Year Writing Program.
My research and curatorial practice foreground African and diasporic creative labor in historical, digital, and exhibition spaces. I am the founder and curator of the Digital Girlhood Museum, an online curatorial project and workshop series that interrogates the marginalization of girlhood within adult-centric feminist and cultural frameworks through art, digital memory, and storytelling (still in progress). My exhibition work includes directing and curating Scheherazade’s Choir: The Radical Curation of Creative Processes (2024), Arts of War; Hearts of War (2023), and New Myths for a Dying World (2022), as well as co-curating the Tuscaloosa Fan Art Exhibition at the Tuscaloosa Public Library. Across these projects, I have been recognized for developing accessible, community-engaged exhibitions that merge theory, creative practice, and public scholarship.
My scholarship has been published in leading venues including Research in African Literatures, African Literature Today, the Journal of the African Literature Association, and Palgrave Macmillan. I am also the author of Half Lives (2024) and a Pushcart Prize nominee. My work as a researcher, teacher, and curator have received numerous distinctions, including the Excellence in Community Engaged Scholarship Award (University of Alabama), the Carolyn P. Handa Excellence in Teaching Award, the Craig T. and Elisabeth S. Sheldon Endowed Graduate Scholarship in Museum Studies, and the Peter Hanák Prize for Best Master’s Thesis at Central European University.
An active international speaker, I have presented invited and peer-reviewed work at the Modern Language Association Convention, the African Literature Association Conference, the European Conference for African Studies, the International Comparative Literature Association Congress, and academic forums across Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. My recent talks engage AI-driven African art, Afro-anime, NFT artistic aesthetics, feminist digital cultures, and artivism, positioning African creative practices at the center of global debates on decoloniality, technology, and cultural memory.
Alongside my scholarly work, I bring extensive experience in communications, archival practice, and public programming. I have worked with institutions such as the Paul R. Jones Museum, the Petőfi Literary Museum, the Living Refugee Archive, and the University of Alabama’s College of Arts and Sciences, producing exhibitions, podcasts, digital archives, and widely read cultural commentary. Across my teaching, research, writing, and curatorial leadership, my work is driven by a commitment to accessibility, and documenting present and future African and diasporic literary imaginaries with the hope of contributing to the range of epistemic resources need to combat epistemic injustices in Africa and its elsewheres.
What’s a bio about Funmi without a nod to her love for stories in all the variegated forms and mediums they exist? She consumes stories from novels, music, social media, anime, manga, comics, exhibits, life, etc., reading these textual and audio-visual works with as much passion as she creates, teaches, and researches them.
SERVICE
My service is centered on cultivating shared interests, creating spaces for identity formation, and fostering inclusive
communities through creative communication
My name, birth certificate-wise, is Oluwafunmilayo Akinpelu. However, I go by Funmi Omo Moji- Funmi, daughter of Moji (my mother). It was from my mother that I first cultivated an interest in social connectedness and learned the power of communication to create a fertile ground for collective development. This is why I am drawn to facilitating the smooth running of the administrative affairs of associations aimed at navigating shared challenges.
For this reason, I have a longstanding history of taking on secretarial roles in the educational institutions I attend. Starting from her secondary school days where she served as the general secretary of the student council filled with chattering teenagers 😂 to my role as communications officer of the student union at CEU. In this role, I collaborated with many stakeholders to combat the racially-motivated immigration crisis faced by international students in Vienna. I collaborated with other union members as well as the school’s Dean of Student Affairs to proffer solutions to these immigration problems. I also spearheaded the organization of general meetings, wrote minutes, composed funding proposals, and worked with CEU’s communications director to send relevant information to students.
At UA, I have been the two-time general secretary of the prestigious African Students Association, a position that has solidified my skills in writing newsletters, managing large-scale correspondence, working with external stakeholders, and facilitating events for community building. I have also been the Vice Preisdent of Operations (a secretarial role) at the level of the Graduate Student Association at UA.
I am currently the General Secretary of the English Graduate Organization at UA and the General Secretary of a reading club, BLissful GLare. I am also the graphic designer for the International Students Association.
I once served as the graduate student administrator for the First-Year Writing Program in the Department of English, a role that allowed her to merge her passion for higher education with her expertise in communication and administration.
Thus I have extensive service experience rooted in community building and creative leadership. My service is often centered on cultivating shared interests, creating spaces for identity formation, and fostering inclusive communities through creative communication.