West Liberty University’s Ryan McCullough has a busy semester ahead of him. In addition to the communications instructor’s usual WLU courseload of oral communications, argumentation and debate, organizational communication and media ethics classes, and guiding the university’s forensics team, he will be presenting scholarly research at several conferences in 2012.

Last year, he and co-author Dan Mistich presented a paper, “Poststructural Prudence: Rethinking Phronesis Through Derrida,” at the National Communication Association’s convention in New Orleans. The research examined the works of Aristotle and the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. During the spring semester, he will present papers at the Appalachian Studies Association conference, the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association’s national conference and at the Rhetoric Society of America’s meeting.

“Participating in scholarship,” McCullough said, “makes me a better teacher. It helps me become more familiar with the literature and subjects the students will be studying.”

In addition to presenting their research at professional conferences, McCullough and Mistich have co-authored a chapter of a soon-to-be-published anthology about pop culture novelist, philosopher and essayist Chuck Klosterman, “Chuck Klosterman and Philosophy,” edited by Seth Vannatta and published by Open Court.

“The chapter we have written is, ‘Is that what you really want?’” McCullough explained. “It is about desire in Klosterman’s writings and how desire is communicated.”

In his third year of teaching at WLU, McCullough earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Marshall University.