Timothy Beal

Timothy Beal is Florence Harkness Professor of Religion and former director of the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University. He has published ten books, including Roadside Religion: In Search of the Sacred, the Strange, and the Substance of Faith, which was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and one of Publishers Weekly’s ten Best Religion Books of 2005; Religion and Its Monsters; Religion in America: A Very Short Introduction; and The Book of Hiding: Gender, Ethnicity, and Annihilation in Esther. He has published essays on the Bible, religion, and American culture for The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Washington Post, and The Cleveland Plain Dealer. He has been featured on radio shows including NPR’s All Things Considered and The Bob Edwards Show. beal has published numerous scholarly articles, serves on several editorial boards, and is coeditor of the book series Afterlives of the Bible with the University of Chicago Press. Tim was born in Hood River, Oregon, and grew up just outside Anchorage, Alaska. He is married to Clover Reuter Beal, who is a Presbyterian minister (he calls her a "Presbyterian shaman," which totally makes sense to anyone who knows her). They have two kids, Sophie and Seth, and live in Shaker Heights, Ohio.