Biography
Raphael Falco is a Professor of English at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He received his B.A. and his Masters degrees from Columbia University and his Ph.D. from New York University. He was a Fulbright Specialist Roster Candidate from 201-2021, and traveled to Astrakhhan, Russia in March, 2018, to give a series of lectures. Professor Falco was the 2012-2013 Lipitz Professor of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at UMBC.
His latest book, No One To Meet: Imitation and Originality in the Songs of Bob Dylan (University of Alabama Press) won the Elizabeth Agee Prize for American Fiction. This book compares Dylan's compositional method to the Renaissance practice of imitatio. Cultural Genealogy (Routledge), Raphael's previous book, explores the popularization in the Renaissance of the myth that later cultures are the hereditary descendants of ancient cultures. The core of this myth is the widespread belief that a numinous charismatic power can be passed down unchanged, in concrete forms, from earlier eras. HIs previous book, Charisma and Myth (Bloomsbury), explored areas beyond his usual precincts of early modern literature. The book introduced a completely new element to the study of myth—the idea that myth and myth systems operate in the same way as charismatic groups.
Raphael's earlier books included Charismatic Authority in Early Modern English Tragedy (Johns Hopkins University Press) and Conceived Presences: Literary Genealogy in Renaissance England (University of Massachusetts Press). His articles have appeared in a wide range of journals, such as Modern Philology, Shakespeare Studies, Criticism, Soundings, Theory, Culture, Society, Max Weber Studies, and English Literary Renaissance.
Raphael is Executive Editor of the Dylan Review for which he writes the Dylanista column in each issue (to read the Dylanista columns, click on the Blog tab above). From 2017-2024, Raphael was Book Review Editor for Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal. He is still a member of the editorial board.
In addition to his scholarly research, Raphael publishes fiction, plays, and poetry. His story "Goodbye Is Too Good a Word" was published in Eclectica in 2018. The story "The Day John Lennon Died," a runner-up in the Willesden Herald short contest, appeared in book form in Short Stories 10 (NOvember 2017). "Shaping Days" won first prize in a short story competition in the online journal Field of Words (2015). His one-act play, The Lights of Ossining, won first prize in the First Stage Contest (LA, 2014) and in the Raymond J. Flores Short Play Series (NYC, 2014). Frankie's Market (a one-act) received a staged reading at the Quotidian Theatre (MD, 2012) and was published in the journal Confrontation (2015). His epigrams appeared in the journal Think (Fall 2016).
Raphael is a cycling enthusiast. He has two "main" bikes, a Pinarello F5 and a T-Lab X3, custom-built by a Canadian company specializing in titanium frames. In addition to these bikes, Raphael rides a Surly Steamroller around town (erstwhile fixed gear, but now freewheel). He can be found on Strava under his nom de guerre Raphael F.
He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.