Dr. Beidler is a prolific writer, having published five single-author books since 1982. His work focuses extensively on the literatures of the Vietnam War, early America, and Alabama, on popular culture and the cultural aspects of war, including not only Vietnam but also World War II and the Civil War. Within these arenas his literary criticism locates and analyzes American cultural myth making. Dr. Beidler’s writing has drawn attention from both national and international critics in the fields of literature, history, and popular culture. According to Jerome Klinkowitz, author of Writing Under Fire and The American 1960s, “Beidler’s book [American Literature and the Experience of Vietnam] will undoubtedly be received as a definitive work on the Vietnam years in American literature. There are so many truly brilliant insights in this book that I can barely begin to list them.”

In addition to his writing, Dr. Beidler is a dedicated and honored teacher. In 1989 the graduate students in the department of English voted that he receive the Henry E. Jacobs Award for Graduate Teaching, and 1991-94 he was chosen to be a Distinguished Teaching Fellow in the College of Arts and Sciences. His students are intensely enthusiastic about his classes, remarking on his wit and erudition, his wide-ranging command of the field, and his generosity. He has directed at least ten dissertations and has seen all of his Ph.D. students go on to find employment in academia, two of them as department chairs.

Dr. Beidler appears frequently at national meetings as a guest speaker and is sought after as a reader for a number of major university presses, trade publishers, and academic journals.