Ainehi Edoro Receives Distinguished Faculty Award and Announces Upcoming Courses

Congratulations to our faculty affiliate, Dr. Ainehi Edoro, recipient of the 2026 Phillip R. Certain & Gary D. Sandefur Distinguished Faculty Award from the UW–Madison College of Letters & Science. The award recognizes outstanding teaching and is a well-deserved honor for Dr. Edoro, whose commitment to pedagogical innovation is central to her teaching practice.

Across her undergraduate and graduate classes, Dr. Edoro encourages students to look beyond familiar experiences and ask deeper questions about the stories, technologies, and cultural forms that shape how we understand the world. Drawing on literature, philosophy, digital culture, and spatial thinking, she creates opportunities for students to connect ideas across disciplines, think critically, and experiment with creative forms of expression.

Her first book, Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels Think, explores forests as imaginative and cultural spaces in African literature. This interest in forests and storytelling also features in her upcoming undergraduate seminar in Spring 2027, African 203: Forests and Fairytales, offered through the Department of African Cultural Studies.

• Why are forests in stories so often places of magic and danger? Why do strange creatures inhabit them, and why do people who enter forests often emerge changed? In Forest and Fairytales, students will explore forests as some of the most fascinating and versatile figures in human culture. Beginning with African storytelling traditions, the course traverses literature, cinema, visual art, and other imaginative forms to examine how forests open up questions about bodies, knowledge, technology, power, and the creation of worlds. The course also takes “fairytales” beyond familiar children’s stories, exploring a wider world of storytelling where the ordinary gives way to the strange, the impossible, and the unexpected.

Dr. Edoro’s teaching also takes students into the digital worlds they encounter every day. In her second Spring 2027 course, English 178: Social Media Writing, offered through the Department of English, students investigate the systems and processes behind familiar social media experiences.

• What happens to a photograph when it becomes an Instagram post? How do platforms turn users’ habits and interests into mathematical predictions? What do algorithms know about us? Using art, literature, philosophy, and digital culture, the course examines how social media platforms shape our understanding of reality and social life. Beyond readings and discussions, students will undertake a collaborative social media project. Working in groups, they will develop creative ideas, build accounts from scratch, publish original content, and experiment with the possibilities and constraints of creating for an algorithm. The project will also include creative clinics with content creators, giving students opportunities to engage with the practical and creative dimensions of digital media.

Although the courses explore different subjects, both invite students to question familiar ways of seeing and consider how worlds are imagined, constructed, and experienced. Whether exploring forests as sites of storytelling and world-making or investigating the algorithms that shape digital culture, Dr. Edoro encourages students to think across disciplinary boundaries and discover new ways of interpreting and creating knowledge.

Explore Dr. Edoro’s first book, Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels Think, and learn more about her upcoming courses through the Department of African Cultural Studies and the Department of English.

With thanks to Dr. Ainehi Edoro for sharing information about her award and courses through her social media accounts: @ainehiedoro and facebook.com/ainehi.edoro.