The Faculty Development Center at Stan State does not typically host debates about whether a cockroach deserves representation in art.
On March 13, the Warrior Bookworms and Wordsmiths, co-sponsored by the English department, brought together students and faculty for the Media in Full Bloom conference.
Presenters covered film theory, visual media deconstructions and critical analysis of historical and contemporary media. Subjects ranged from ecocriticism in “The X-Files” to Shakespeare’s place in the digital classroom.
Presenters were selected through UPenn’s academic submission platform, the primary site used by journals and conferences to solicit work. Organizers selected the top 16 abstracts from the pool and arranged them into five thematically distinct sessions.
Reagan Oliveira (Graduate, English), vice president of the Warrior Bookworms and Wordsmiths, said the club built the conference to increase engagement among students on campus who are interested in media and to give them an opportunity to showcase their talents.
“CSU Stanislaus harbors great literary talent, but I feel as though many students aren’t aware of the opportunities available to them to display those talents,” Oliveira said. “The world of academia should feel attainable and interesting to students, not intimidating.”
Film and media were the focus of the conference because of their interdisciplinary nature, familiarity and natural connection to potential attendees. She hopes future iterations will draw submissions from across the university, rather than solely from English majors.
Professor Anthony Perrello, the driving force behind the conference on the faculty side, said the timing was deliberate and expressed hope the event would bring people back to campus.
“Part of what I try to do is bring people back to campus and bring them together, because we’re still kind of wallowing in the hangover of the pandemic,” Perrello said. “I thought this would be a nice opportunity to force people to come to campus and get together in a live setting and exchange ideas about their work.”
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Nathan Wilke, Stan State alumnus and current graduate student at the University of Nevada, Reno leading a roundtable discussion on “Distortion, Displacement, and Horror in Mediated Shakespeare” during the Media in Full Bloom Conference on Friday, March 13, 2026, in Turlock.
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Mateo Gudino, a Stan State alumnus and Dr. Anthony Perrello at a roundtable discussion on “Rotten Rounds, Curing Charms: Comestibles, Music, and Music-as-Food in The Tempest” during the Media in Full Bloom Conference on Friday, March 13, 2026, in Turlock.
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Nathan Wilke, a grad student visiting from the University of Nevada, Reno, is presenting on “Deformed, Unfinished, Sent Before My Time’: The Body of Richard III in Ian McKellen’s 1995 Film” on Friday, March 13, 2026, in Turlock.
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Muskaan Ali (Senior, English) presenting to attendees about the film Hidden Figures, displaying the white savior narrative on Friday, March 13, 2026, in Turlock.
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Garret Massey (Freshman History) presents his short story “Footsteps” during the Digital Literacy Gallery Walk at the Media in Full Bloom on Friday, March 13, 2026, in Turlock.
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Jayleen Ruiz (Sophomore, Child Development) presents her digital journal “Butterflies and Growth” during the Digital Literacy Gallery Walk at the Media in Full Bloom on Friday, March 13, 2026, in Turlock.
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Heather-Anne Jeager (left), Schyuler Becker (middle) and Julian Saenz-Payne (right) presenting during the conference session “Analysis of a Fall: The Subtexts of Cinematic and Societal Descent” on Friday, March 13, 2026, in Turlock.
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Local high school students attend and discuss digital literacy gallery walk during the Media in Full Bloom Conference on Friday, March 13, 2026, in Turlock.
Assistant Professor Salvador Ayala Camarillo moderated an afternoon panel and said presenters brought thoughtful and insightful perspectives to the conference.
“There was not a single paper that I thought was on the weaker side,” Camarillo said. “I think everybody brought their A-game.”
He said the conference filled several rooms and drew attention from people outside the university, which he saw as a sign the event had met an important early benchmark.
“A conference can be a scary thing,” he said. “A lot of them are early-career scholars, and something like this provides a nice low-stakes environment for them to dip their feet into that.”
Christopher Finley (Graduate, English) presented a Lacanian psychoanalysis of a 1996 episode of “The X-Files” through an ecocritical lens.
“Maybe reconsider your ideas of what it means to be human, maybe what it means to be non-human,” Finley said. “If we can actually represent in our art, or in our aesthetics, a space for the non-human, whether that be a cockroach or even be the dirt, that is something.”
Perrello acknowledged it took effort to get students to participate, but said what they produced was worth building on.
“Every paper that I heard, every presentation that I attended, I was very proud,” Perrello said. “I’m going to do my best to spin our successes into a proposal that will get us funded again so we can do this next year.”
Julian Saenz-Payne (Graduate, English), president of the Warrior Bookworms and Wordsmiths, said that while the Media in Full Bloom conference is not currently set as a yearly event, he expects it will return.
“I would be shocked if we didn’t do this again,” Saenz-Payne said. “I think it will make a great tradition. There is an audience for the type of material that was covered, and it gives people at Stan State the opportunity to attend a conference without having to travel.”
From debates about cockroaches in art to packed sessions across campus, the Media in Full Bloom conference showed potential to become a yearly event.
