iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 This seems mostly spot on, but it’s going too easy on Chicago grads!

Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Just got my copy of this banger, edited by David Bergman and Guy Davidson and including essays by many hands, including one from yours truly on Walt Whitman! And I promise that the book—dealing though it does with gay men AND autobiography—is not as solipsistic as it sounds.

Photo of me holding aforementioned book and grinning intemperately.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Our special issue of Arizona Quarterly on the American novel at the turn of the 20th century is now out! In addition to an intro by @natewolff.bsky.social and me, it includes 6 original essays and a bracing afterword by Jennifer Fleissner (which, among other things, urges us back to Lears).

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Our special issue for @j19journal.bsky.social honoring Frances E.W. Harper's 200th birthday is now out! It features *8* terrific essays on intriguing facets of Harper's work and concludes with a stirring afterword by @profkori.bsky.social. @dark-stars.bsky.social @c19americanists.bsky.social

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Proofs for the Cambridge History of American Gay Autobiography, which includes my essay on Whitman! As niche as the volume sounds, I'm sure it'll appeal widely—because who doesn't wanna read generations of gays talking about themselves, or, in Whitman's case, as I argue, artfully refusing to?!

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

I am so thrilled—really! But how long do we have to keep saying that it's high time to vote Staten Island *off* the island! We just are not the same.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

OMG, Bruce Robbins activates full BEAST mode in this interview!

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

And the award for most-disconcerting Google alert goes to . . .

Screenshot of Google alert about the obituary of a man who shares my name

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

If you'll be at MLA, consider stopping by our panel on Louisiana's first famous—and perhaps most famous—writer, Kate Chopin. Saturday at noon!

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Just realized, at this late hour a day late, that I forgot to wish my dear @devingarofalo.bsky.social a happy birthday! Here's one of us being silly in SF and looking Sag-tastic. xx

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Clearly, People Magazine has taken a side on this issue.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Lol. Never thought I'd see the day when I'd be used to sell products at Target, but here we are!

Target ad for Complete Letters of Henry James featuring my review.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

This is the funniest unironic ad I’ve seen in some time.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

I really hope JCO joins us here. I'll never, ever forget this tweet—one of the best moments of my life.

Tweet from Joyce Carol Oates saying, "Twitter is a haven for people who’d studied too hard while in school & are compensating by deteriorating in semipublic in adulthood.”

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

In euphemisms, the English are unmatched.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 14/03/2024

Had the pleasure of being among the first to screen this very idiosyncratic upcoming film, “The American Society of Magical Negroes.” I’ll say this much: it’s sure to cause a stir among the critics!

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 08/03/2024

The New Yorker celebrating Women’s History Month:

Headline reads, “The birth of my daughter, the death of my marriage”

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 26/02/2024

I'm looking forward to be back at 92nd Street Y this spring! This time, I'll be giving a course on books that changed America. roundtable.org/live-courses...

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 24/01/2024

I have arrived! Finally got a window office at work. Here’s my view. It was fully worth the wait! 🙏🏽🤩

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 14/12/2023

Thanks for all the bday wishes! Part one of my bday celebration was wonderful! My friend took me to Mariah Carey’s Xmas concert, which was a blast. See? I’m cheesing with glee.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 13/12/2023

My old friend is happy to see me! 🥰😸

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 07/12/2023

A student left me this sweet note at the end of her exam. ☺️

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 06/12/2023

OMG finally I can do my laundry! 🙌🏾

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 05/12/2023

This really is just perfect song—exactly what your ear imagines when you think of the word *vibe*.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 05/12/2023

“Partial gratification is preferable to a social alternative that indulges what is presumed to be man’s unlimited appetite for more.” —Nancy Armstrong

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 04/12/2023

The dramatic dash has long been a thing among writers (esp. for forcing a pause), but I think Elizabeth Warren popularized it in politics, for better or worse. (Look at the posts of your politicians, and you'll see them strewn with it.) Now who will resurrect the semicolon?

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 03/12/2023

Not sure which one of these contradicting propositions is more outrageous.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 03/12/2023

OMG, I am so bad at selfies, despite the blessing of these long arms, but here are @johnhavard.bsky.social and I after our Sagittarius brunch yesterday, in front of the restaurant's *enormous* Christmas tree, looking like the most respectable HRC couple you've ever seen! x* *No, we're not dating.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 01/12/2023

My review of new volumes of Henry James's and Nella Larsen's letters is out in The Edith Wharton Review!

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 27/11/2023

Here’s a picture of me and my friend over Thanksgiving doubling the homosexual population of Bermuda! 🌈🌈🌈

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 17/11/2023

In just a few weeks, I’ll be giving a two-session course on Nella Larsen at 92nd Street Y (@92ndstreety.bsky.social)! They happen on Dec. 5th and 12th. You should join. It’ll be fun. xx

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 13/11/2023

“The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.”

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 11/11/2023

After you take the Dark Triad Test—the “Are You a Sociopath?” test—and you get your results, they give you this option. Could you imagine sharing your sociopathy results on these platforms? It’s like when Venmo added the feed option to make financial exchanges *fun*.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 07/11/2023

Voting is its own reward, but it comes with the bonus of an excuse for a selfie!

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 06/11/2023

People just refuse to let JCO live. smdh

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 03/11/2023

Mariah Carey gathering the accountants in preparation for the annual "All I Want for Christmas" harvest.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 02/11/2023

OMG, my friends are the sweetest! When I got home, this beautiful bouquet was waiting on my doorstep, congratulating me on my new Larsen edition. Thank you, Billy and Michael! 💜🌈

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 02/11/2023

Clearly, @broadviewpress.bsky.social has @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social's sense of humor! 🤣

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 02/11/2023

My editor copies of Passing have arrived! The edition is gorgeous. Thanks, @broadviewpress.bsky.social!

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 02/11/2023

Y'all, this woman is on Twitter having the time of her life!

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 02/11/2023

@medievaliste.bsky.social won me over with the phrase "award-losing scholar." I followed back *so* quickly.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 01/11/2023

So excited to be able to hold this fabulous new book by @pdabashi.bsky.social! We may be Losing the Plot, but this book is winning! Congratulations, my friend. 🥳

Losing the Plot, a book by the virtuosic Pardis Dabashi.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 30/10/2023

Seriously not sure that there ever was a more purposive song than this.

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Rafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 25/10/2023

I keep getting these ads on IG telling me that (non-trippy) mushrooms are the fountain of youth and that I should replace my coffee with them. If they can confirm that that is what Diana Ross is doing, I will consume more mushrooms than the Mario Brothers. Because DAMN!

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