He earned his MA in Folklore and his PhD in Literature at The Ohio State University. In addition to teaching at New York University, Long Island University, and the University of Houston, Dr. Beller was a high school teacher for ten years, four of them at YES Prep in Houston. He is co-author of Interpreting Poetry, and has published critical articles on Shakespeare, Chaucer, and other topics in Medieval and Renaissance English literature. He has also published or presented papers on Dickinson and Whitman, and on 19th Century European novelists (Stendhal, Flaubert, Tolstoy).