A Harvard English Professor on Academic Writing, Christian Science, and Gothic Literature

Anne M. Stiles [00:00:00] One of the main scientists I talk about David Farrier, he was actually hauled into court for doing these experiments on monkey brains and he was acquitted. And that was a huge blow to the anti vivisection movement.

Vance Crowe [00:00:12] There was an actual anti vivisection movement. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [00:00:15] And it was huge. And it was led by a bunch of, I don't know, we might call them like the hippies of their time. You know, they were mainly women counter-cultural types, but they, you know, loved animals and didn't want to see them hurt.

Vance Crowe [00:00:30] This is the Van Scroll podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Well, listeners, this has been a wild week for the podcast. I had high, high hopes to be able to do an interview with a class action personal injury attorney. His name is Troy Walton and he actually came all the way over here from Edwardsville, Illinois, crossed the river, came to the studio. We sat down and we did I think a two and a half hour interview. And it was one of the best conversations I've ever had. It was a back and forth where I learned a whole bunch about how criminal and civil cases are different, what the difference is between compensatory and punitive damages. Why is it that you can have multimillion dollar suits, all kinds of things. And I get all the way done with the interview, Troy and I shake hands. We go our separate ways after having had a great conversation. And I come downstairs to edit together the interview and I realized that not only did I not capture the video, the audio was not high enough quality that I could place that out in the world either. And so the whole thing was a total wash and I was devastated. In fact, it was one of the hardest things that I have had to bounce back from in the few months that I've been in business. And I don't mean that because I, you know, I haven't, I haven't faced some difficult things.

Vance Crowe [00:02:03] It was just that this was something I had promised my listeners. It was something I worked on and it was something that turned out it could have been truly great. And so I don't have it. So I had told you last week that I was going to have this podcast and I don't. And so for that, I'm very sorry. On the other hand, as it happened, I had a person lined up in my mind that I knew that I wanted to interview, but she's been outta the country and I know she's waiting for a book to be published. So I was thinking I would probably have to wait until later. But because this interview didn't work out, I gave my friend Anne Stiles a call, actually I ran into her on, on the, in my neighborhood and I said, Anne, would you please come do this interview with me? And she didn't even hesitate. She jumped right at it. And what you are in store for is something completely different than class action law. Anne Stiles is an associate professor at St. Louis University. She has an amazing background. We'll talk all about where she studied and what, what it is to become an English professor. But as soon as we get past even the first couple of sentences, you'll realize that this kind of academic, maybe even nerdy, very slight woman is brilliant and provocative and fun and can explain stories that are in our cultures heritage in ways that I have never heard before.

Vance Crowe [00:03:37] We end up talking about things like Dracula, the, the, the story behind it, which I actually am ashamed to admit I had never read before and didn't really have any idea what the actual story is about Jekyll and Hyde. We talk about the state of healthcare, particularly for women and the, in the early 19 hundreds, late 18 hundreds and all sorts of fascinating concepts about how things like Christian science, the sect in, in Christianity had such a profound influence on the new thought movement and really on people that we see and hear from today. I don't wanna take any more away from it. It is just to say that while I thought I was gonna have like kind of the second place interview, what happened with Anne here in the studio today was amazing. And I hope that you love it. I hope that she gets you as excited about literature and some of those things that we were supposed to learn in college that we never did. Or maybe you thought you that, that these are the types of things people are learning in college and you get a firsthand view as to why someone would go on to become a professor in English. So enjoy the interview. I apologize, I will get Troy in. He was very gracious when when he said I couldn't he when I said that the interview didn't work out and I'm looking forward to getting that up at some point. But you will not be disappointed with this interview. Anne Stiles, welcome to the podcast.

Anne M. Stiles [00:05:07] Thank you so much for having me.

Vance Crowe [00:05:09] Well I was quite fortunate to be able to get you, you have just come back from a trip to Germany.

Anne M. Stiles [00:05:15] Yeah, so if I'm a little jet lagged, I apologize. But it was great though.

Vance Crowe [00:05:20] But it wasn't until we lined up this interview that I ever actually went and looked up your biography. So just in full disclosure, our families know each other. We get together every once in a while. Yeah, we live somewhat close to each other. And the last time we were talking, we had this fascinating conversation about an entire segment of religion or spirituality that I knew nothing at all about. And we're gonna get into that. But you know, I just thought, oh this is an interesting conversation with a teacher that's a professor. And then I went to look you up after, I wanted to see like, is she crazy about the things she's talking about Christian, Christian science. Yeah. And, and then I looked up your background and you are a Harvard educated PhD from UCLA.

Anne M. Stiles [00:06:03] That's right.

Vance Crowe [00:06:04] With an English. It's, it's a PhD in English. And, and I was quite impressed.

Anne M. Stiles [00:06:11] Thank

Vance Crowe [00:06:11] You. And looked up some of your, your bibliography of all the books you've published and thought you would be a wonderful guest to have on. So thanks for joining.

Anne M. Stiles [00:06:17] Thank you so much.

Vance Crowe [00:06:19] And so to start off, what, what in the world made you be somebody that said, I'm capable of going to Harvard and the thing that I wanna study is English?

Anne M. Stiles [00:06:28] Yeah. Well I'm a very stubborn person. So I think one reason I wanted to go to Harvard is 'cause people told me I couldn't, you know, I came from a small town, I'm from Bakersfield, California and most people there, if they're good students, they go to ucs, you know, uni, university of California schools or they go to Stanford and not that many people really think to go to Ivy's. So I had this crazy idea in my head that I wanted for a long time it was Yale. I really wanted to go to Yale. But then I ended up just applying to a bunch of IBS just to see what would happen, you know? And I went to Harvard Summer school in 1993 and that made me think, you know, hey, I could really do this. Like I don't care what my guidance counselor says, I'm just gonna apply anyway. So

Vance Crowe [00:07:10] Your guidance counselor was actually telling you, we don't think you can get into Harvard.

Anne M. Stiles [00:07:13] Well, she told me like, you have to know somebody, you have to have connections. And so I was thinking, well maybe she's right, but I'm a very stubborn person so I just sort of kept after it anyway.

Vance Crowe [00:07:26] And were you then like valedictorian of your school and

Anne M. Stiles [00:07:29] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:07:30] So kind of kinda nerdy in high school, would you say?

Anne M. Stiles [00:07:32] Oh my god, so much so.

Vance Crowe [00:07:34] So what activities were you involved in?

Anne M. Stiles [00:07:36] Academic decathlon, which is like sports for nerds. And I played the piano a lot. I like composed a lot of music and stuff. And you

Vance Crowe [00:07:45] Composed music as a kid? Yeah,

Anne M. Stiles [00:07:46] A lot of it. And how

Vance Crowe [00:07:48] Did you learn how to do that?

Anne M. Stiles [00:07:49] You don't really learn. It's just like I play by ear on the piano a lot and it just was something that I kind of got into and I'm not really, I don't think I ever learned it, you know?

Vance Crowe [00:08:01] Do you still compose music?

Anne M. Stiles [00:08:03] In my head, like I don't really put it on the piano so much, but a little bit.

Vance Crowe [00:08:07] Very interesting. Yeah, so you go from Bakersfield and for anybody that doesn't know Bakersfield, California is not like the stuff you see on the coast and in the movies. This is, no, this is an agriculture community, right?

Anne M. Stiles [00:08:18] Yeah, it's like kind of in the middle of the state. So it's not on the coast, it's not in the mountains, it's just the agricultural center. They grow almonds, they grow cotton, they have a lot of oil industry there. It's about half million to a million people right now. But it wasn't that big when I was growing up. So it was a smaller town, like I think it would've been considered a rural community for like an Ivy League college, you know? And so, I mean I loved growing up in Bakersfield, I thought it was great, but it definitely was not the typical path for someone like me, you know, to go to the East coast to study

Vance Crowe [00:08:53] And then you get to Harvard. And how was it different than what you expected?

Anne M. Stiles [00:08:57] It was completely different. I mean, I feel like I was like a foreign exchange student in America, you know, just by going to the opposite coast, being around all these people who'd been to like Phillips, Exeter and Julliard pre-college and all these amazing high schools where they were super well prepared. And I had been to this public high school in California and so I, I had a lot of catching up to do and it took me a couple years to get my grades to the point where I wanted them because I was competing with people who had so much more training and, and they have a different culture there too. Like Boston is culturally very different from like rural California. Like people don't, they aren't quite as friendly and outgoing I would say. And they're more academically focused. So I just had to kind of get used to that and, and that took a while too,

Vance Crowe [00:09:46] You know, you've said something that's kind of a running theme for a lot of my guests, which was I got to university and I was not prepared.

Anne M. Stiles [00:09:52] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:09:54] Do you think that that is something that everyone just feels, because they look around and they say, all of my competitors are now smart? Or do you think it's like real, you, you genuinely were behind?

Anne M. Stiles [00:10:05] I think I genuinely was, or at least I felt that I was behind. And I think it really depends on the person too. Like I know some people who went to college and they were just raring to go and they were super prepared and they were geniuses and they didn't really seem to have problems as far as I could tell. And then I have students who know that they come from under-prepared backgrounds and they really struggle. So, or who for whom English isn't even their first language, you know? So they end up having a lot of catching up to do.

Vance Crowe [00:10:33] I think everybody has an image for what English lessons were like in either middle school where you're learning like put the comma there and, and you know, the semicolons are only used for this and then you get to high school and it's a lot more reading. What do you do if you're studying English at an Ivy League school? What are they teaching you?

Anne M. Stiles [00:10:52] Basically you just read novels all the time, which is terrific. And then they also have, you read literary theory, which is kind of like philosophy, but applied to literature and that was a little bit foreign to me. And then you also have to take classes in foreign languages, which I really like a lot because I was learning French and I loved it, you know, so I mean I love the material I was studying, but it just took me a while to figure out how to write a paper that was gonna be successful in college. Like I think that was my main challenge because in high school, you know, you write the three paragraph essay and that's just kind of what you do. And that doesn't fly in college. And that's something I'm finding when I'm teaching my students nowadays is like I have to un unteach the five paragraph essay to them, just like it had to be untaught to me in the beginning. And

Vance Crowe [00:11:41] So what replaces the five paragraph essay?

Anne M. Stiles [00:11:43] Basically just an essay where you have an argument and you stick to it through however many paragraphs you need to until you get it done. Like there is no, you know, argument plus three subdivisions of the argument. You know, it's not like that precise, it's just you argue as long as you need to to get the point across.

Vance Crowe [00:12:03] And, and so how long did it take you to catch up with your fellow students? About

Anne M. Stiles [00:12:08] Two years. And I think there were a lot of conversations that went into that. Like I went into some professors and said, you know, I, I worked really hard on this paper and I still got a B and I just don't understand like what I'm doing wrong, you know? And they would explain to me, you know, you didn't have a counter argument or you didn't ha you didn't consistently follow through with the argument and things like that. And so like gradually by talking to people and peers, you know, as well as teachers, I figured out, okay, here's what I could maybe be doing better, you know?

Vance Crowe [00:12:41] You know, it's interesting to think about a sport where you play something and you can watch yourself get better or a musical instrument, but I don't think most people consider that argumentation or at least the articulation of an argument can get, can get a lot better.

Anne M. Stiles [00:12:54] Yeah, I mean you can definitely get a lot better at that. And that's something that, like I just taught an intro to writing class in spring semester and watching my students go through that process of realizing they can make an argument was really cool and eyeopening, you know? And they weren't necessarily great at it by the end of the class, but just to see that light bulb go on that like, hey, I can make an argument. I can make a point and stick to it. You know, like that really cool.

Vance Crowe [00:13:21] Cool. And that's true power, right?

Anne M. Stiles [00:13:23] To

Vance Crowe [00:13:24] Persuade people, particularly in the written language where you can be one person that spreads it out to a mass of people. If you can do it persuasively, you have a, a superpower really?

Anne M. Stiles [00:13:33] Yeah, I think so. And I mean, I think people don't realize how potentially useful like an English major is, or even an English minor because you really learn how to express yourself clearly and forcefully and articulately and how to make an argument and take a side and you know that how important that is from your work.

Vance Crowe [00:13:52] And so do you think that, because I think when I think about college nowadays, you hear that people go off to school and their professors are just dumping ideas into their head.

Anne M. Stiles [00:14:03] Yeah. Do

Vance Crowe [00:14:03] You think that that's going on right now? Did did that happen to you? Did, did people impute their political motives or their, you know, world philosophies onto, onto the, the authors you were reading?

Anne M. Stiles [00:14:15] I didn't feel indoctrinated like ever at any point. Even though I think, you know, the university, Harvard is very left wing obviously, and I'm a pretty left wing person too, so that was fine with me. But the way I approach my teaching is I wanna teach them how to think, not what to think. You know, I wanna teach them a method that they can use to convey whatever their ideas are. 'cause I, I think if I just give them ideas, like if I just tell them this is what you should think, then it's not gonna stick with them. 'cause they're not gonna know why. Right. They're not gonna know why they should believe this and they should have their own opinion. They're adults.

Vance Crowe [00:14:51] And so just for the listener, we should maybe say who these students are. So where do you teach and, and what classes?

Anne M. Stiles [00:14:57] I teach at St. Louis University. And I mostly teach in the English department, like English for pre-meds, like and intro level English courses. And sometimes graduate courses too in 19th century literature and science.

Vance Crowe [00:15:12] Okay. 19th century literature and science.

Anne M. Stiles [00:15:15] And sometimes just more general topics too, like sci-fi and the literature for pre-meds focuses more on patient narratives and stuff like that because they all wanna be doctors, so they have to learn like what the patient experience is like.

Vance Crowe [00:15:29] Well I wanna, I'm, I'm very interested to get into your subject matter. The the other thing that I wanted to cover before we got there was the, like when you go from being a student that's just reading novels to then going on to get your PhD, is it just more novels or are you doing something different? And, and I, I guess the core of what I'm trying to get to is how does one become trained to teach other people in the skill that you have?

Anne M. Stiles [00:15:53] Yeah, well basically the PhD program involves you taking some courses in the beginning and then basically you have to write a book by the end of it. Really. Like, yeah. So the last few years are you writing about something in your field and writing really a book length report on that.

Vance Crowe [00:16:08] So not writing a novel, writing a criticism of of literature or some aspect of it.

Anne M. Stiles [00:16:13] Right. A criticism of literature or some aspect of it. Or maybe you've unearthed a new document or something like that and you write a dissertation on this and it has to pass your committee. So it has to be good. It has to be book length. It doesn't have to actually be a published book yet, but it has to have that potential down the road.

Vance Crowe [00:16:32] And what was your subject on, what did you write your dissertation?

Anne M. Stiles [00:16:36] I wrote mine on neurology in late 19th century literature, which is kind of an unusual topic, but I started, you

Vance Crowe [00:16:44] Have to say the least.

Anne M. Stiles [00:16:44] Yeah. I started out being interested in mad scientists and like literature by HG Wells and science fiction authors in that time period. And I noticed a lot of references to brains and brain cells in these monster novels and mad science novels. And I thought, what's up with that? What should you know, what am I gonna do with this? And I started doing a little more reading around those topics. And I found out that some of these gothic and science fiction novels were really informed by neuroscience. And some of these writers were really afraid of neuroscience and interesting ways. And that's where the monsters come from. So it evolved from a project about mad scientists sort of in general to a project about like brains and monsters and how people felt about brain science.

Vance Crowe [00:17:30] Do you feel like you had the chance to have revelations during your, during your dissertation? Did you already know everything going in and you were just writing it down or?

Anne M. Stiles [00:17:38] No, I mean, I didn't know anything going in. Like I thought I was gonna write about mad scientists and I ended up like making one chapter about mad scientists and the rest was all about other stuff. And a lot of what I discovered was just things in archives. Like I would

Vance Crowe [00:17:52] Just push this a little closer to you. Okay.

Anne M. Stiles [00:17:55] Yeah. So I would find like stuff in old periodicals that people hadn't read for years. But thankfully UCLA had a lot of these old periodicals and I found stuff that I think these authors were using as source material. So it was really cool to be saying like, I think, you know, Jekyll and Hyde might've been inspired by this article that talks about a similar case or something like that, you know?

Vance Crowe [00:18:18] And, and so, so give an example what, what you were finding these in medical journals then, or actually

Anne M. Stiles [00:18:23] Just lay journals because in the 19th century there wasn't a clear division as much as there is now between like professional journals and regular everyday journals that anyone could read. So you could have a scientific case study reported in a popular magazine. Like one of the ones I discovered was there were articles about multiple personality or dual personality as they called it back then in Cornhill Magazine, which was a popular publication. Robert L. Stevenson was publishing in it. So were Science Popularizer who were basically looking at these case studies coming out in France and coming out in places like that and saying, you know, and writing about them and describing them. And my suspicion is that Stevenson read other journal articles in that same publication where he was publishing 'cause he also wrote for Cornhill. And I think he found these pieces and said, aha, you know, I wanna write about dual personality in some fashion. I'm not sure if it was that obvious, the connection or it happened in exactly that way, but that was sort of the suspicion I had as I was reading it.

Vance Crowe [00:19:28] Because you're able to say, Hey, he was published in this in in this issue right here. And three pages later there's an an article starting on this other subject. Exactly.

Anne M. Stiles [00:19:38] Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it's three pages, but the same writers or in the same journal issues were writing about. I mean, he would've seen these pieces as they were right adjacent to his,

Vance Crowe [00:19:50] Well this sounds far more sophisticated of the imputation of, of where an author got their ideas than what I remember being from college. 'cause I remember sitting in college and having a professor be like, this is what that letter symbolizes, or this is what that thing means. And then you being like, well how, how do you know that maybe they put that element in and it was by accident and now you're imputing all this motive.

Anne M. Stiles [00:20:13] Yeah, I think students have a hard time sometimes wondering where we're getting our ideas from and how we know that something might symbolize this. And what I try to do to get around that is have them analyze a passage, you know, put a passage on the board and say, what do you think it means? And then we'll list a whole bunch of different possibilities for what they think it might mean. The only problem is sometimes they don't want to say anything and then you have to suggest to them, maybe it means this, maybe it means that. And then I feel like I become like that professor you're talking about who's just feeding them ideas. But it depends on how talkative the class is, like how well that approach tends to work

Vance Crowe [00:20:51] And do monster stories and, and these types of things draw, draw out the students

Anne M. Stiles [00:20:57] As much as anything does. I mean if you're, if you're dealing with people who are kind of literature averse, who are like non-readers, which some of the intro course students tend to be, then I think monster stories are the best way of getting them involved. Or maybe science fiction or, I mean, there's no one genre that really captures everybody, but I feel like everyone likes talking about horror novels and monsters at least to some extent. Right. So it helps a little bit.

Vance Crowe [00:21:23] And so what were some of the books that you, you taught in this last semester?

Anne M. Stiles [00:21:27] Well, Jekyll Hyde. 'cause I always teach Jekyll Hyde. I just kind of have to, and then the War of the Worlds by HG Wells and the Time Machine by HG Wells. And then I went later with books like Soliris by Stanislau Lem, which is about eight Extraterrestrial Life. And then Octavia Butler's Kindred, which is about time travel. So we looked at 20th and 21st century science fiction too.

Vance Crowe [00:21:52] Wow. I didn't have any classes like that. So, you know, even when I think about it, I don't know that I've ever read Jekyll and Hyde. I mean, I think I understand the core dichotomy, but what is the, what is the actual story there? What, what's kind of an overview of Jekyll Hyde?

Anne M. Stiles [00:22:07] Okay, so it's about a man in England who is a doctor. He's a distinguished physician and he's always lived an upright, respectable lifestyle except he had kind of this wild period in his youth, right? And eventually he decides he misses that wild period and he misses that wild side of himself. And he like wants to create a separate personality that can go and do all these evil things that maybe he's wanted to do or morally questionable things that he's wanted to do, but he doesn't wanna be known for, right? He wants to be able to do these questionable things with impunity. So he creates this second personality in order to do that, but then it starts taking over and he can't control it anymore. Like the Hyde personality starts coming out, even when he doesn't want Hyde to come out. And it becomes a problem because Hyde is wanted for murder because Hyde killed a distinguished member of Parliament for basically no reason, just 'cause he's a rageaholic. And you know, he does a lot of crazy things. It's never quite clear what Hyde has been doing other than we know he murders this one guy. And then in the end Jekyll kills himself because he knows that there's really no way out. He can't control Hyde anymore and he's gonna get caught for murder. So

Vance Crowe [00:23:20] I, I mean, I didn't know this story genuinely. Yeah. I'm a little embarrassed, but, so and and are the students captivated by this, this clear thing that could be like, hey, because to me it sounds like a story that's like, this could easily happen to you, whichever

Anne M. Stiles [00:23:32] Part

Vance Crowe [00:23:32] Of your life you feed you will become.

Anne M. Stiles [00:23:35] Yeah, I mean I, I hope that they're captivated by it and I think some of them are, but it always amazes me. Like, I don't know if they don't read the book sometimes or if they just don't identify with it. But I find there are some things that I read as an undergraduate that I really didn't get, that I come back to 20 years later and I'm like, oh wow, this is really powerful. So I feel like I can't blame them too much if they can't get it. 'cause maybe they're just not ready, you know, like they're just not at a point in their life when they understand. Although I think everyone would understand like those dueling motives. Right.

Vance Crowe [00:24:07] I don't know that when you're 18, do you have a sense that you have a shadow? I mean, I think there are a lot of kids that grew up thinking I'm good and, and I follow all the rules. And they really haven't had an exposure to temptation, let alone this is what happens if I let myself go.

Anne M. Stiles [00:24:22] Yeah. And then you go to college and suddenly you have access to alcohol and sex and like all these drugs and things. Yeah. I mean I would think they could relate to that in some way. And I think the ones that do the reading typically do relate to it. But, but not everybody does in these intro courses. But I think overall those students really like Jekyll and Hyde and it tends to be a fun thing to discuss, which is one reason I keep bringing it back again and again. And because for me it was just such an important point of discovery, you know?

Vance Crowe [00:24:53] And what was going on in, in society at the time when Jekyll and Hyde was being written?

Anne M. Stiles [00:25:00] Well, a lot of things, I mean, it's hard to give an overview, but the part that I talk about in my writing is how neuroscience was changing. Like people were starting to use animal experiments to study the brain and to look at neuroscience in a more scientific way as opposed

Vance Crowe [00:25:16] To what kind of animal experiments were they doing?

Anne M. Stiles [00:25:19] Dissecting and Vivi dissecting monkey's brains, like while they were alive, applying electrical current to the brains of different animals. And this was all very controversial at the time. Like nowadays you can experiment on animals and nobody bats an eye. Right? But it was a big deal back then. It was a new thing. Oh,

Vance Crowe [00:25:35] You think it was more difficult to get people behind the animal testing than it is now?

Anne M. Stiles [00:25:41] Oh, yes. Because now it's an established thing. I mean now it's done in laboratories everywhere, like every med school and there's so much money and power behind it. But when it first was a big deal in Britain in like the 1850s and sixties, people started these experiments. There was huge controversy. I mean, one of the main scientists I talk about, David Farrier, he was actually hauled into court for doing these experiments on monkey brains. And he was acquitted. And that was a huge blow to the anti vivisection movement.

Vance Crowe [00:26:16] There was an actual anti vivisection movement.

Anne M. Stiles [00:26:19] Yeah. And it was huge. And it was led by a bunch of, I don't know, we might call them like the hippies of their time. You know, they were mainly women countercultural types, but they, you know, loved animals and didn't want to see them hurt. And they had a lot of power for a while and they even had some doctors on their side. But then after this farrier trial and him being acquitted, the, the movement kind of lost some momentum, but it was still a really scary thing for people, I think.

Vance Crowe [00:26:49] And, and then, and the discoveries that were coming out at this time started making people a little bit like more aware of how the brain works. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [00:26:57] And what was scaring people, I think, was that people started realizing like, the brain works by a series of automatic functions and reflexes. Right? Like, not everything we do is controlled by our willpower. Not everything we do is something we choose to do. And I think that was scary, like on a theological level for people. 'cause they thought God controls me or my willpower controls me, not, you know, electrical impulses from my brain control me. Whoa. You know what I mean? So yeah, that became a big scary thing that people wanted to explore and was really new to them.

Vance Crowe [00:27:32] Was, was there pushback on the pulpits or from the pulpits on, on studying the brain and, and what we're learning or what what is actually true?

Anne M. Stiles [00:27:40] I think there may have been, I mean, I can't think of specific sermons, but I do know in the novels of the period, there was a lot of concern about brain science. And even the scientists of the period got very moralistic about it. Like some of the conservative scientists said, you know, what are we doing? We're undermining the idea of God or free will, you know, which is still controversial today. I think people have trouble with that idea even now. Let, let alone in the 19th century when it was kind of a new concept.

Vance Crowe [00:28:09] It's interesting. So in my last interview with Tony Sanso in ii, he mentions the project when they were discovering the nuclear bomb. Wow. And, and how they Oppenheimer essentially said like, I didn't realize until I was too far gone that I had made a Faustian deal. And, and you know, because I got all this great scientific equipment,

Anne M. Stiles [00:28:32] I

Vance Crowe [00:28:32] Made it an exchange. I gave the world the worst weapon ever. But I've also heard it said that it wasn't until that point in time that scientists were thinking about the impact of their work. And so it's almost comical now to me, the person that told me that to think like, well, no, wait a second. When they were doing, when they were writing Jekyll and Hyde, there was controversy over science. Oh

Anne M. Stiles [00:28:52] Yeah. I mean, scientists have been thinking about the impact of their work. I would guess probably since science has been done, right? Because you always think about what are the implications for society? And scientists were debating this heatedly at the end of the 19th century and saying, well, is it good that work the sum of our neurochemical impulses? Or is it a bad thing? You know, and this was really scary for people.

Vance Crowe [00:29:15] And where else did this play out in literature then?

Anne M. Stiles [00:29:19] You see it a lot in like HG Wells and his novels about alien brains and extraterrestrial intelligence. And then Dracula, my argument is that he's a mad scientist in a way, even though he's also a vampire because he experiments on people. He does these things. He, you know, tests their minds in certain ways. And you

Vance Crowe [00:29:41] Know what I mean? I'm really embarrassed of this now. I've never read Dracula. I, I only know of like the movie takes on it. And in fact, I was, I was thinking Dracula is some sort of ancient myth that we have not, not a, not a book that was written in the 19th century. I

Anne M. Stiles [00:29:56] Think there was sort of an ancient myth that it was supposedly based upon that I don't know that much about. But yeah, Dracula was very much a 19th century story and most people only know it from the films. They don't know it from like, you know, the actual novels. Same with Frankenstein or Jekyll and Hyde. This

Vance Crowe [00:30:14] Is exactly right. So can you give an overview of, of Dracula?

Anne M. Stiles [00:30:17] Yeah. Well, so Dracula is obviously about a vampire who comes from Sylvania, you know, and he lives in his castle. And it starts out where a solicitor, a a lawyer comes from England to help him. I don't know what he's trying to do, sell his castle or No, no, he is trying to find a residence in England. That's what it is. So Jonathan Harker, the lawyer, comes there to help Dracula find a residence in England. Meanwhile, Dracula is like biting him and planning to kill him. And you know, all these weird things happen. Jonathan escapes and gets back to England and tells his friends there, oh my gosh, there's this sinister vampire who's trying to buy a house in England. We have to stop him. So his friends get together, he has a doctor friend. Anyway, there's a lot of these people. And Dracula meanwhile makes his way to England via ship. He changes himself into an animal, into a dog. 'cause he can do that. And he goes on board ship and then he, you know, jumps off when there's a shipwreck and there he is in England and he starts preying on Jonathan's friends and biting them and turning them kind of into auto automatons because they become his unconscious minions who just follow him around. And so long story short, a lot of crazy things happen. But in the end, Dracula is vanquished when they drive a stake through his heart in his home castle of Tra Transylvania and a doc, two doctors are involved in this vampire fighting process and a lawyer and a lot of professional men, you know, and an American, I don't know why.

Anne M. Stiles [00:31:51] So that's the story in a nutshell.

Vance Crowe [00:31:54] And and what do you think was the, the author's intent?

Anne M. Stiles [00:31:59] I think Ram Stoker was really interested in psychical research, which had to do with the study of haunted houses and spirits and whether these things were real. I think he was essentially a Christian who was kind of anti-science in a way. But he also had a really strong scientific training because three of his brothers were physicians. Three of his brothers were doctors, one was a brain surgeon, which is really interesting. And he was really close with the one who was a brain surgeon. So they talked about brain surgery on occasion. So he knew about these neurological experiments and he was kind of frightened by the implications. And I think Dracula was how he worked out his fear of what does it mean that we're the sum of our neurochemical impulses or that we can experiment on animals without, you know, feeling bad about it necessarily. You know, I think he was trying to work through all those things. And

Vance Crowe [00:32:54] Did he write other books that were in the same genre?

Anne M. Stiles [00:32:58] Yeah, he wrote this book called The Jewel of the Seven Stars, which I, I have to admit I haven't read. I'm kind of embarrassed about that. And then also in the layer of the white worm, which is really weird, like weirdest thing you'll ever read. And it's about a woman who turns into a giant worm and lives in this tunnel underground. And it's, it's just bizarre. Like,

Vance Crowe [00:33:23] And so, so help me understand, when you're working with these students, what is it that you hope they pull out of Dracula?

Anne M. Stiles [00:33:31] I hope they enjoy it. I hope they find it a fun read because I want them to enjoy literature and I also want them to see all the various different ways you could interpret it. 'cause Dracula is one of those fun texts that you can interpret a lot of ways, right? There's like tons of sexual metaphors and they tend to like that 'cause it's interesting, you know, and there's, and

Vance Crowe [00:33:50] In high school they weren't allowed to talk about it. They

Anne M. Stiles [00:33:51] Weren't exactly, they weren't allowed to talk about it in high school. So you can talk about it on that level. You can talk

Vance Crowe [00:33:56] About, you know, the Canterbury Tales was, was banned at my high school. What? Because there was, there was sexual innuendo in that that some of the other students didn't like. And so they, it was, it was banned at my high school.

Anne M. Stiles [00:34:07] Well that's a shame. Those are the fun parts. Well

Vance Crowe [00:34:10] It kind of put us on the map, right? Then it made every high school student wanna read it because you're like, wait a second, what's it banned for?

Anne M. Stiles [00:34:16] Yeah. I mean there is kind of interesting sexual stuff in there now that I think about it. But did you guys actually learn middle English to read it or I guess not. 'cause you weren't allowed to read it. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:34:27] Well we just, I, or if I think by the time I got to high school they were allowed to read certain parts of it, but there were other parts of it that were banned. I, I don't

Anne M. Stiles [00:34:36] Remember it

Vance Crowe [00:34:36] Being a pleasant experience. I remember like the Baker, the Candlestick, I don't remember it.

Anne M. Stiles [00:34:41] Yeah. So you probably weren't allowed to read like the Wife of Bath's Tale or I

Vance Crowe [00:34:45] Think that's the part that got it banned.

Anne M. Stiles [00:34:46] Yeah, that's, that's too bad.

Vance Crowe [00:34:48] And so, but, but my point was, when you're in high school and then go to college and all of a sudden you can talk about not just, not just the imp you can actually openly talk about sex and, and those topics in your class.

Anne M. Stiles [00:35:00] Yeah. But it's really hard with these Catholic students. Like some of them aren't Catholic, so I don't wanna say, you know, they all are, but a lot of them have been to Catholic schools no matter what their background. So they're uncomfortable talking about sex because

Vance Crowe [00:35:14] Seamless University is a Catholic school for good,

Anne M. Stiles [00:35:15] Isn't it? It's, yeah. So I should have clarify that. Yeah. And at other schools where I've taught people are, the students are thrilled to talk about sex. They love it. But at SLU I have to kind of draw them out. Like, doesn't this sound like it might be a penis? You know, I have to go there 'cause they just won't,

Vance Crowe [00:35:32] You know, and you really, you really can tell a difference between the Catholic kids and the Catholic school kids and the, and the, the other schools.

Anne M. Stiles [00:35:40] Well even the ones who weren't at Catholic schools, I think the Midwest people tend to be more reserved about stuff like that. Maybe.

Vance Crowe [00:35:47] I don't know. Yeah, I mean this is, this is, I, it's my podcast and I'm a little bit like, am I gonna get in trouble for talking about this?

Anne M. Stiles [00:35:52] Yeah. Well so anyway, for some reason I can't get the students to talk about it very much. And I'm like, Hey, this is the fun part. This is the part I personally looked forward to discussing when I was 18. You know, and I can't get them to necessarily engage 'cause they're like too shy.

Vance Crowe [00:36:08] And what are the parts that, that they don't have trouble engaging with

Anne M. Stiles [00:36:13] More on an intellectual level, I guess. Like if you give them a task and you set them to do it. I'm trying to think. I think if you give them a really specific task that's a little less controversial, they tend to have less trouble with that. But yeah, sexual topics, I've found that most places it was a big hit. But like here it's a no go. It just doesn't work very well.

Vance Crowe [00:36:36] I didn't have any idea that that Dracula had any of that in it. I mean this is, this is,

Anne M. Stiles [00:36:40] Well all the biting, you know, the penetration and the exchange of bodily fluids and stuff. So it's all metaphorical. Was

Vance Crowe [00:36:47] It pretty controversial at the time the book was written?

Anne M. Stiles [00:36:51] I think somewhat. But it's weird how tone deaf people were to those metaphors before Freud. Like I think that's one reason why people maybe didn't recognize some of these metaphors at the time. Only later, you know.

Vance Crowe [00:37:08] Oh really? Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [00:37:09] Do

Vance Crowe [00:37:09] You think Freud made people go back in the, in their literature and be like, wait a second, I missed. So just the concept of symbolic meaning around sex just didn't exist.

Anne M. Stiles [00:37:20] It's really hard to understand what was going on with the Victorians and why they didn't grasp these metaphors. Like you would think it's so obvious, right? The biting, the penetration, the bodily fluids. But yeah, I think Freud made people more sensitive to these types of, this type of imagery. And even like really obvious lic imagery, people didn't necessarily like notice it. So it's just, yeah, it's very strange that they didn't catch on. But we think Freud has something to do with that.

Vance Crowe [00:37:48] And then, and Freud would've been like fifties and sixties? Forties and

Anne M. Stiles [00:37:52] Fifties? No, he would've been early 20th century.

Vance Crowe [00:37:54] Okay.

Anne M. Stiles [00:37:55] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:37:56] Okay. So not far after. Those books were written,

Anne M. Stiles [00:37:58] Not that long after. And some people say, you know, he's really a product of the Victorian era himself in a sense, even though he was living in Austria. And so it's appropriate to use his work to think about the 19th century. But in the 19th century, people in England didn't really know about him yet.

Vance Crowe [00:38:15] Oh, that's interesting.

Anne M. Stiles [00:38:16] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:38:17] So did you have to read a lot of things by people like Freud or Joan

Anne M. Stiles [00:38:22] Or Yeah, yeah, I read Freud, I read him in the original German a couple of times. Not long works, but a little bit. And that was something we had to do as part of like the literary theory unit or trauma theory, things like that. In

Vance Crowe [00:38:36] Your undergrad or your PhD?

Anne M. Stiles [00:38:37] Both.

Vance Crowe [00:38:38] You had to, you had to read the German translation in undergrad?

Anne M. Stiles [00:38:42] Oh no, no, sorry, that was more in grad school. Okay. Because I only learned German in grad school. Okay.

Vance Crowe [00:38:46] Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [00:38:47] But

Vance Crowe [00:38:47] Even still, I mean that's, that's a 22-year-old learn, being able to read really deep literature at in another language.

Anne M. Stiles [00:38:56] Yeah, I mean I just love learning other languages, you know, and I'm not super great at either German or French, but I did get good enough to read some novels and short stories in the language. And I really value that experience. 'cause I think it helps you understand your own language better when you can understand how another language works.

Vance Crowe [00:39:15] A hundred percent. You know,

Anne M. Stiles [00:39:16] Like

Vance Crowe [00:39:17] My limited understanding of Spanish, I picked up some things, but it wasn't until I learned Swahili that you start saying

Anne M. Stiles [00:39:22] Swahili,

Vance Crowe [00:39:23] Well how, well, how well how good is your Swahili?

Anne M. Stiles [00:39:25] None then

Vance Crowe [00:39:26] I'm fluent. No, mine isn't very good. I learned in the Peace Corps. But,

Anne M. Stiles [00:39:30] But,

Vance Crowe [00:39:32] But that's when you start learning like the fun, the things that I think are fundamental to our language don't necessarily have to be there. We constructed them. So for example, in Swahili you can have an entire sentence crammed into one word because of the way that the prefixes work and the, and the tenses. It's all really,

Anne M. Stiles [00:39:50] It's like German,

Vance Crowe [00:39:50] Is that right?

Anne M. Stiles [00:39:51] Yeah. They, they have huge words like the word for speed limit is, I think I said that right? But that's one word for speed limit. Isn't that weird?

Vance Crowe [00:40:03] And then there are a whole bunch of other aspects of language that I really wouldn't have thought that are almost philosophical. So I often talk about in Swahili they have this word poe, which in one sense means, I'm sorry. So you could, you could go to say Poe to somebody if somebody gets sick or

Anne M. Stiles [00:40:20] Dies. Yeah. But

Vance Crowe [00:40:21] Then if you are like rushing to get somewhere, somebody will say to you, Poe Poe. And what they mean is you should slow down. Hmm. And and it's an interesting thing because the, the, you know, like when you go to a funeral, you're not really going to say I'm sorry to the

Anne M. Stiles [00:40:35] Person. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:40:36] You're going there to say, I wanna spend time with you. I'm, I'm here to comfort you. Yeah. I'm

Anne M. Stiles [00:40:40] Here to,

Vance Crowe [00:40:41] So the, the connection between being slow and sharing a burden or I'm saying I'm sorry. I had never considered in that way and I don't think I ever could have gotten there without that language.

Anne M. Stiles [00:40:53] That's so cool. I mean it's really interesting to hear how other languages conceive of things and ideas in ways we wouldn't. And I think I've gotten ideas from German and French because they have different types of expressions too. I can't think of such a great example off the top of my head like you just did. But it's just a wonderful process.

Vance Crowe [00:41:12] And, and the experience of learning a language, was it work for you or was it always fun?

Anne M. Stiles [00:41:17] It was fun. Like, I mean of course it's work to learn the grammar and stuff, but I'm kind of a parrot, which that's what you call a person who learns a language by listening as opposed to by memorizing grammar and stuff. And so I just went to Germany and I talked to people and I repeated what they said and if I got the response that I wanted then I kept on saying it.

Vance Crowe [00:41:37] That's like a child.

Anne M. Stiles [00:41:38] Yeah. So it was like child, yeah. Like trial and error. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:41:41] Yeah. When I was very fortunate when we were growing up that my dad, he who was also in the Peace Corps, he would bring some of the people that he knew from Peru. One woman in particular who was like our grandma's age. She would come, her name was Zaida and stay with our family. And the biggest benefit that you find out there is she could communicate with the littlest kids way easier than she could communicate with my mother. 'cause she only spoke Spanish.

Anne M. Stiles [00:42:04] Oh. And

Vance Crowe [00:42:05] So, because children don't mind pantomime things and looking funny. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [00:42:09] And

Vance Crowe [00:42:10] So I was able to take that lesson. Like I, I'm, I'm terrible at studying grammar, but drop me into, you know, Manzania Mexico and I'll figure out how to speak.

Anne M. Stiles [00:42:19] Yeah, I mean just talk to people and I mean you're one of those parrots too, I guess. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:42:23] Definitely. You can

Anne M. Stiles [00:42:24] Learn that way

Vance Crowe [00:42:25] And, and because I think that that's the challenge of languages. Like for somebody that it is really work from the word go.

Anne M. Stiles [00:42:33] It's

Vance Crowe [00:42:34] Really hard to do it because trying to get yourself to pay attention to something you don't care about, it's really difficult.

Anne M. Stiles [00:42:38] That's really hard. And I remember when I was taking like German one, right, just learning the basics. There was this guy in the class who kept telling me, why won't the teacher just give us the English translation that would make this so much easier. And I wanted to tell him, you know, this is because there sometimes is no English translation for that, you know, or no precise English translation. And that's not how you learn a language. You learn by immersing yourself and wondering what something means until you figure it out.

Vance Crowe [00:43:06] And the more motivated you are to figure it out because you don't like you, you did immersion programs, is that right?

Anne M. Stiles [00:43:10] Yeah, well I basically just went to Germany and did like language courses and lived with a German family and so it was totally immersive. I spoke German all the time and yeah, you just figure things out that way. You have to.

Vance Crowe [00:43:25] So getting back to the, the technology and the, and the reading these philosophers or psychologists in other languages, do you feel like you, you can open up a book, read it and close it in another language and you understand it on the same level that you would understand it if you read it in English?

Anne M. Stiles [00:43:43] I don't personally because I never got that good. Like I always needed a dictionary, you know, I always needed a little bit of help. But I think you can get that good if you spend long enough at it. If you spend years and years in the country, you can. But I just unfortunately never had the opportunity to go for like an entire year or two years or something like that.

Vance Crowe [00:44:04] And so you then left your PhD program with this concept, your dissertation that you now teach on in many

Anne M. Stiles [00:44:12] Ways. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:44:12] But you wrote a book on this? Yeah,

Anne M. Stiles [00:44:14] Yeah. Well the dissertation got revised and turned into a book and that book came out in 2012. And I'm now shopping around a second book that I've written, which is on a totally different subject. And yeah, it's just been a, a wild process. But people say you never know a topic as well as what you wrote your dissertation on because you just dive so deeply into that for so long

Vance Crowe [00:44:37] And you probably don't have that many other things going on in your life at that point, right?

Anne M. Stiles [00:44:42] Mm. Some people do, but I really didn't. Like I was just in grad school I was trying to learn German kind of as a hobby and I did meet my husband at the time so I had that going on, but we didn't have kids or anything so like I had a lot of free time, you know, and he's a workaholic. So I had even more free time because like he was working so I had to work on something, you know, I had to do something while he was busy.

Vance Crowe [00:45:05] And so what happened after you became a book author? Did that change your life in some dramatic way?

Anne M. Stiles [00:45:11] I got promoted to associate professor and I got tenure. So that was at at slu. Pretty cool at at slu. Yeah. I'm trying to think. And I guess now I get asked to review other books on similar topics, other articles on similar topics. So it changed my life in a way I guess. But I'm still writing, I'm still doing the same things.

Vance Crowe [00:45:34] Do you come across people that write about the subject that you're talking about and you think, no, you've entirely missed the boat. This is, this is madness that you're putting out here

Anne M. Stiles [00:45:43] Sometimes. Yeah, I do. And you have to be diplomatic about it 'cause it's a really small field

Vance Crowe [00:45:53] And they'll remember that you were, you were unkind.

Anne M. Stiles [00:45:56] Oh yeah. I mean they will. And so I mean I have to be very tread very carefully in those kind of situations.

Vance Crowe [00:46:03] And are, are you willing to say the types of ideas that these people have that you think are are subpar?

Anne M. Stiles [00:46:10] Well, okay, one thing that kind of bothers me sometimes is when people apply 21st century neurological concepts to 19th century novels because I feel like those ideas didn't necessarily exist at the time and there's time and place for that. Like I think that kind of study can be really interesting. But I just feel like they need to acknowledge the anachronism involved in that. Like for instance, if you talk about autism in the 19th century, they didn't have that idea of this condition. I think it did exist but they didn't have the concept, you know, so you have to tread very carefully when you do something like that.

Vance Crowe [00:46:43] And were there concepts that they were appreciate about things that they got right in at least as fiction before the science got there?

Anne M. Stiles [00:46:51] Yeah, well I think they were better at doing like depth psychology than we do. Kind of like, you know, Freud later did meaning, you know, talk therapy was important to, well not talk therapy precisely, but understanding mental illness as an emotional disturbance as opposed to just a chemical disturbance. I think, you know, nowadays people just take a pill and assume they have a chemical imbalance and it will improve with the medication. And I think Victorians kind of had that idea that maybe there was a chemical thing going on, maybe it was hereditary, but also that there could have been some emotional disturbance as well and and trauma. And they were kind of at the beginning of trauma theory as well as at the beginning of, you know, ideas of physiological causes of mental illness.

Vance Crowe [00:47:37] So that was a lot of your older work. Yeah. But you actually are in the process of publishing a new book, right?

Anne M. Stiles [00:47:44] Yeah, well it's under review with the press, so fingers crossed I hope they take it and if they don't, someone will. So it will be coming

Vance Crowe [00:47:51] Out. What does that mean under review?

Anne M. Stiles [00:47:52] That means it goes out to two readers or sometimes three and you know, if they like it, the book gets published and if they don't then it doesn't. Oh,

Vance Crowe [00:48:01] Which is the exact same thing you were saying before about yeah

Anne M. Stiles [00:48:03] You

Vance Crowe [00:48:04] Review other people's books so somebody's reviewing you now.

Anne M. Stiles [00:48:06] Right. So I mean it goes both ways and that's one reason you have to be diplomatic because eventually you're gonna be on the other side of the process as well.

Vance Crowe [00:48:15] And do you know who's reviewing your book?

Anne M. Stiles [00:48:19] Sometimes I think I do. I mean they usually don't tell you, but sometimes it's

Vance Crowe [00:48:23] Supposed to be anonymous. Yeah,

Anne M. Stiles [00:48:24] It's such a small world though that sometimes I have a feeling like I think I know who this person is, but I'm not sure, you know, but maybe I think I do.

Vance Crowe [00:48:33] And so how long after you send a book out for review does it take to hear back?

Anne M. Stiles [00:48:37] Gosh, it can be months, sometimes years, although not usually years. But that did happen to a friend of mine with one press where they just got like really behind and that's bad though. That's not what usually happens.

Vance Crowe [00:48:50] So is this pretty in a pretty agonizing time then?

Anne M. Stiles [00:48:55] You know, I stressed out so much about my first book. I just promised myself I would never stress out that much about anything again. You know, like I had to make myself a promise 'cause I just was wasn't

Vance Crowe [00:49:05] What was your stress like when you say you were

Anne M. Stiles [00:49:07] Sick? I wasn't sleeping. I was just really worrying all the time and I was just like a constant stress case. And

Vance Crowe [00:49:12] Is it in your nature to be a constant stress case?

Anne M. Stiles [00:49:15] Pretty much, yeah. I mean I'm a constant stress case anyway, but I was like, even more so because of this book and after it was done I said I am making a promise to myself. I am never again gonna stress myself out this much over anything. Even a second book. I don't care if I can't even finish the second book 'cause I refuse to stress about it. But I mean, I do still stress about things a lot, but I made myself promise like never again, you know, never to that level.

Vance Crowe [00:49:40] Is stress a pretty big motivator for you?

Anne M. Stiles [00:49:43] Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think if I weren't like a stressy kind of a person, I probably would never have like, you know, studied as hard as I did and had any motivation to wanna go to Ivy League schools or do things like, or become a professor, you know? I mean this is a profession for sort of crazy people I really think because you have to really be motivated to wanna jump through those hoops and put yourself through that, you know.

Vance Crowe [00:50:07] And when you were a little girl in Bakersfield, California, is, is the stress self-imposed or did or were your parents like you are getting out of here?

Anne M. Stiles [00:50:16] No, I mean they never put pressure on me to be academically successful. I mean, they expected that I would get good grades and I did, you know, I never disappointed them that way, but there was never really pressure. It was just kind of like, you know, in our family we get good grades and we go to college, but they never expected anything more than that. Right. So I kind of took it to another level just all on my own. And

Vance Crowe [00:50:39] Do you have brothers and sisters? I

Anne M. Stiles [00:50:41] Have a brother. And he is much more laid back about academic success in part because I was his older sister and people would get him in their classes at two years after they got me 'cause he's two years younger. And they would say, oh, your sister was so wonderful. She was the best student we ever had. And then he was just disgusted with this, you know, so on purpose, he wouldn't turn in his homework because he's bright, but he didn't wanna get good grades 'cause he didn't wanna be like me. So he would purposely sabotage his schoolwork, which is kind of sad actually. Have

Vance Crowe [00:51:13] You, have you ever seen a character in all of the reading that you're doing that has a self-sabotaging younger brother?

Anne M. Stiles [00:51:18] Oh gosh. I'm sure there's somebody, I

Vance Crowe [00:51:21] Mean, it seems like an archetype, right? It seems like a, like a clear sibling behavior that people would, would take on while they're trying to figure out who am I gonna be?

Anne M. Stiles [00:51:30] I know more real people like that than fictional characters. I guess I can think of like my husband, his little sister is the same way where she wasn't as bad in terms of self-sabotaging, but she didn't study nearly as hard as he did. She just got good grades. 'cause she was bright, you know? But it was a similar thing where she constantly got compared to him and she was annoyed by it and she just wanted to do her own thing. And

Vance Crowe [00:51:53] Well I'm, I'm, I'm one of seven, so like the comparison between the oldest sister that was going and saving the rainforest and my older brother who is kind of a troublemaker, like smart guy, but people always thought he was causing more trouble than he needed to. So there was always the comparison.

Anne M. Stiles [00:52:08] Yeah. Well, and the thing is, my brother's really bright, but I think it's taken him a long time to recover from self-sabotaging because, you know, he didn't finish college because he got hired out to be a computer programmer before finishing his degree. 'cause he's a terrific coder and he always has been, you know, he's an amazing programmer. He works for Google now, you know, I mean, he's very successful. But it took him a long time to kind of have confidence because, you know, he was always being compared to me. And then he didn't finish college. And I think finally when he started working for Google, he realized like, Hey, I wouldn't be here if I weren't smart. You know? And so then now he's okay with it. But it took a long time for him to get to that point just 'cause he was so sick of being compared to me. And, you know, I was really hard for him. I think,

Vance Crowe [00:52:55] You know, it's interesting because there's two brands that you, we've, we've talked about so far, Harvard and Google.

Anne M. Stiles [00:53:01] Yeah. That,

Vance Crowe [00:53:02] That, that symbolize something in our current culture of, of like making it or, or being successful. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [00:53:09] Where you can finally

Vance Crowe [00:53:09] Relax. I, well, and I had done that to the point where there's a, there's a thing called the World Bank, which is a cousin to the un. I think we talked about it. Yeah. Like, and, and for me that was like the ultimate thing. It was definitely the, the brand of some organization that I was like, when I finally work there, then I will feel successful.

Anne M. Stiles [00:53:29] Then I have arrived. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:53:30] Then I've arrived. And that was a horrible, horrible disaster when you get there and you're like, oh wait a second, this is just another place. And now I've gotta figure out how to, how I'm gonna find value in what I'm doing in some other way.

Anne M. Stiles [00:53:44] I know like Oscar Wilde says something about like, and I'm not gonna quote this correctly, but something to the effect of, you know, there are two tragedies in life. One is not achieving your dreams and one is achieving them. Because if you achieve them then you know that like life goes on and it's kind of the same, even if you achieve your dreams in a way. Right. And I just think like, in a way I sort of lived that, I mean, I haven't achieved all of my dreams by any means, but at least by going to Harvard, I achieved one of them. And I was like, wow, life goes on and it's great. Like, don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for that opportunity, but you just, like, you're still a person. You still make mistakes. Life still is flawed, you know, so it's, it's great. I'm not complaining about it. Just that it gives you a different vantage point.

Vance Crowe [00:54:31] And after you've already done that, so you've, now you're onto publishing your second book and what, what are your, your big dreams? Like what is the aspiration of the English professor?

Anne M. Stiles [00:54:41] Well, I mean this sounds really lazy, but I like, I kind of already did my two books that you need to become full professor. And so I wanna develop hobbies and like a personal life. Like, you know what I mean? Is

Vance Crowe [00:54:55] That what you sacrificed in order to,

Anne M. Stiles [00:54:56] To get this?

Vance Crowe [00:54:56] Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [00:54:57] Yeah. It is. I mean that's one of the things and I think, you know, I find myself at the end of writing these two books. Like I have some hobbies, I have some things I like to do, but there's so much more I'd like to do that's not just my job. You know? And one of the things I've been realizing just as I get older is like, life is not your job. You know, in the beginning maybe it has to be 'cause you have to like establish yourself. But then once you get to a certain point, it's so nice to just try something else. You know? And maybe I wanna renovate houses, you know, I've been doing that with my current house. We've been, my husband and I love to renovate houses. Maybe I'd like to learn how to do Pilates, which I, I've been meaning to do for ages and you know, I wanna have hobbies and more hobbies.

Vance Crowe [00:55:42] Well you were describing the parrot, you know, concept before and that requires kind of a white belt's mentality of the Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [00:55:49] I'm

Vance Crowe [00:55:49] Totally willing to go look foolish in order that I can

Anne M. Stiles [00:55:53] Yes.

Vance Crowe [00:55:54] Become successful. Is that something that, that, have you always been willing to do that in all domains or no, this is gonna be a stretch for you now that you're not focused on your big goals now your smaller ones require you to be a white belt.

Anne M. Stiles [00:56:07] Yeah, I think I'm fine with that in a way. 'cause I've always been someone who liked to make fun of myself and just like, I don't care if I'm the butt of the joke as long as people are laughing, you know? I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but I just

Vance Crowe [00:56:19] Oh, it would be a superpower. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [00:56:21] It would be

Vance Crowe [00:56:21] A superpower.

Anne M. Stiles [00:56:22] Yeah. And I love it when people are laughing. So if they laugh at me, like if I am the worst at Pilates, like, I don't care because there's no one, it's not an Olympic sport, you know, there's no one measuring your success. And I did sports, like as a a young person, you know, I did gymnastics in ballet as a kid and I was really bad at them because, and I just, I just am not very coordinated. But it's nice to be able to do these things as an adult when it doesn't matter. You know, when nobody's judging how good you are and nobody cares. Like, I'm looking forward to that.

Vance Crowe [00:56:57] That's the, that's a huge lesson to learn. When I first started about five years ago, going to the gym, I hadn't been since I was in high school.

Anne M. Stiles [00:57:04] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:57:05] And I remember having this weight on my shoulders of like, everybody's gonna be watching what I'm doing. And then you get there and you start lifting and you realize they don't care what I'm doing. Right.

Anne M. Stiles [00:57:14] They're

Vance Crowe [00:57:14] Not there for me. Yeah,

Anne M. Stiles [00:57:16] That's really true. And that's why I think I wanna do more physical things. 'cause it's something I was always bad at and I felt bad about being bad at it. And now I realize like, it doesn't matter. You just do it for you and nobody cares if you're going to, you know, be in the ballet recital or, you know, there's no stakes, no competition.

Vance Crowe [00:57:35] You know, Annie, my wife, I think you guys have talked about it before, but she took on synchronized swimming. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [00:57:40] So she

Vance Crowe [00:57:40] Went from being a competitive swimmer to synchronized swimming. And for me, watching her go from being like expert level at this swimming thing, be in the same pool Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [00:57:50] But

Vance Crowe [00:57:50] Have all the rules changed. It was really interesting to see her adapt to it. And she kind of came down in the same way that you did that she was like, I get to wear all these sparkly clothes in the pool and dance to music. Yeah. Like, what's better than this? And I think like the more people that take on that mentality, the better it is for everybody. It's better for you as an individual and then your contributions go to the group and things get better.

Anne M. Stiles [00:58:13] Yeah. I mean we had a, a grad student in one of the programs where I taught earlier before I came to St. Louis, who was a yoga teacher as well as a grad student in English. And now she's a professor. And she said, you know, professors, you, you're very mental. You focus on the mind and that's great, but you also need to nurture the physical side. And it's taken me years to really follow that advice as well. And I still don't follow it as much as I would like to, but I just feel like, you know, she's right. If you focus on your mind too much, then your posture starts to go and you don't take good care of yourself. You know, and it's important to like get out there and do other things, even if you're not a naturally athletic person. You know?

Vance Crowe [00:58:54] I mean it's definitely changed my life, the amount that I am active now and, and how much I run and do all kinds of things. It was like the willingness to be like, I know I'm gonna look like the fat guy that's out there running that doesn't look like you belongs, but you don't get to be the guy that doesn't look like that until you go through that path.

Anne M. Stiles [00:59:10] So were you actually overweight when you started?

Vance Crowe [00:59:12] Oh yeah. So, so I had taken this job that I was working on at Monsano. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [00:59:18] And

Vance Crowe [00:59:18] Now all of a sudden I'm traveling all over the place and I'm going to conference dinners and like banquets and so I'm eating whatever and I'm sleeping terribly. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [00:59:29] And

Vance Crowe [00:59:29] So I woke up one day and realized I was like 250 pounds and Oh

Anne M. Stiles [00:59:34] My gosh, you would never know. Like, you've obviously lost a lot Weight. Weight.

Vance Crowe [00:59:38] Yeah. More

Anne M. Stiles [00:59:38] Than, more

Vance Crowe [00:59:38] Than 50

Anne M. Stiles [00:59:39] Pounds.

Vance Crowe [00:59:39] And my father-in-law invited me to go do stationary bike with

Anne M. Stiles [00:59:45] Him at

Vance Crowe [00:59:45] This, at this gym. And it was one of the most humbling moments of my life. Wow. 'cause we were like 10 minutes in and here's my father-in-law, this big guy works down on the river

Anne M. Stiles [00:59:55] And he's

Vance Crowe [00:59:55] Cranking away with big smile on his face. And I'm about ready to throw up.

Anne M. Stiles [00:59:59] Oh.

Vance Crowe [00:59:59] And I was like, okay, something's gotta change. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [01:00:03] And

Vance Crowe [01:00:04] I, I left that thing and went and signed up for the gym. And I was so bad that when, so when you signed up at this gym, they gave you two sessions with a personal trainer? Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [01:00:14] And the

Vance Crowe [01:00:15] Personal trainer and I are walking around, he, he's kind of showing me the equipment and I said to him, or he said to me, you know, is there anything that I should be aware of? And I was like, yeah, I don't want to get down on the ground, so whatever exercises you give me, like I don't want to get down and get back up. Like that's just not for me. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [01:00:31] And

Vance Crowe [01:00:32] He looked at me like I was crazy, but to me that seemed like a totally normal thing to do. And now five years later, like I'm in Juujitsu. Wow. Like this is a total life change.

Anne M. Stiles [01:00:44] Wow.

Vance Crowe [01:00:45] And, and I think that that came from looking at the dragon directly saying like, Hey, you've, you've way, you've way let go of how much your athleticism is and how much you eat and blah, blah blah. Which,

Anne M. Stiles [01:00:56] And it's so easy to do.

Vance Crowe [01:00:57] Oh yeah. Particularly when you're focusing on your career, like you were saying before.

Anne M. Stiles [01:01:01] Yeah. Well I think this summer I've just been writing my book and I've been trying to exercise and trying to eat right. But it's so easy to let stuff go when you're just focused on this intellectual thing above anything else. So like, the first thing I wanted to do once I got that book sent off to the publisher was just, you know, the first thing I did was go to Europe and eat lots of cheese. But like, the second thing I wanna do is come home and like eat healthy and work out and just be more physical. You know, be more than just like a brain for a while.

Vance Crowe [01:01:29] How have you figured out to, to set up your day so that you get writing done so that you get your, your things accomplished?

Anne M. Stiles [01:01:37] Well, when I'm in writing mode, I like to use the mornings to get things done. 'cause if I don't get writing done by say like 2:00 PM each day, I feel kind of cranky. Like I just didn't use that morning. And I find like the time right before breakfast, even during breakfast, sometimes I write and like right after, for some reason that's my most productive time. And like, I just, I like to, sometimes I can't crank out ideas with regularity, you know, but that's when I do my best thinking and that's when I tend to put the most words on the page. And anything after 2:00 PM is just a bonus. You know, like if I do stuff after 2:00 PM that I usually do, but that's just like extra credit, you know?

Vance Crowe [01:02:18] And, and when you say if I don't get something written down, I feel cranky. Are you writing, you know, the five paragraphs? Or are you writing it doesn't

Anne M. Stiles [01:02:26] Matter. No, I mean sometimes I write as little as 200 words a day. It just has to be good, you know, and sometimes I'm just editing, so I'm just really trying to shorten a document or make it sound better, you know? So it's not always about the word count, it's just about getting those ideas out, getting them as clear as possible. I really believe in clear academic writing. 'cause I think a lot of academic prose is very gnarled and hard to understand, you know? And I wanna make everything very clear. So. Well

Vance Crowe [01:02:55] You gotten criticized at one point, didn't you? For, for some of your writing being too,

Anne M. Stiles [01:02:59] Too

Vance Crowe [01:03:00] Pedestrian too too available to the general public

Anne M. Stiles [01:03:02] And not

Vance Crowe [01:03:03] Academic enough. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [01:03:03] Well I actually got a review of some of my work saying that it wasn't academic. And I think partly what they were saying is it wasn't complicated enough. You know, maybe it was too clear. And I thought, well

Vance Crowe [01:03:16] You mean that too clear?

Anne M. Stiles [01:03:17] I guess. I mean they, 'cause they kind of used those words, they said like, this is extremely clearly written, it flows really well, but it's just not, not academic. And I thought, well maybe it's not academic to them because it's clear, you know, and

Vance Crowe [01:03:29] You think maybe they thought that word academic, you guys had a shared definition of what that that would mean.

Anne M. Stiles [01:03:34] Yeah. And to them, I think that would mean more philosophical, a little bit harder for the general public to approach maybe. And that means it's smarter. But I think the smartest writing should be clear, you know, like personally I believe that, and I almost took it as like a backhanded compliment, although I don't think it was intended as one. But, you know, I wanna be clear. I want people to understand what I'm saying.

Vance Crowe [01:03:57] And could somebody pick up your book and, and read it? The the one on, what is the title of your neurology book?

Anne M. Stiles [01:04:04] It's called Popular Fiction and Brain Science in the late 19th Century. And actually the publisher chose the title that wasn't really my choice because they like Cambridge University press likes very matter of fact titles. I had something kind of flowery and they were like, no, we're not going to use that. But yeah, I think it says what it's about to do, you know, and then it does it. So it's very practical.

Vance Crowe [01:04:31] And this new book, the one that I was the whole time we've been talking here,

Anne M. Stiles [01:04:35] Is to

Vance Crowe [01:04:36] Lead to this big moment, which is for me asking you to describe this new book that you have. That when you told me about it, first of all, I thought you were, my wife told me you were talking about it, completely different religion. She

Anne M. Stiles [01:04:47] Told me you were

Vance Crowe [01:04:47] Talking about Scientology.

Anne M. Stiles [01:04:48] Yeah. It

Vance Crowe [01:04:48] Turns out you were talking about Christian science. And so I was surprised by that. But then you started talking about the theories in this book. And I gotta tell you, they were so outlandish that I came home that night and spent about two hours looking it up to make sure that, whoa, I didn't I that you weren't a crazy person. It turns out you're not a crazy person. So

Anne M. Stiles [01:05:06] Talk about

Vance Crowe [01:05:07] Your new book. Wow.

Anne M. Stiles [01:05:07] Okay. Gosh, that's really cool. I'm glad that they struck you as so surprising, these ideas, you know, 'cause I've, I've just been living with them for years, so it doesn't seem crazy to me anymore. But, so I'm writing about Christian science and new thought and Christian science is not the same as Scientology. And people get them confused all the time. But Scientology is El Ron Hubbard's religion created in the 1950s has to do with aliens. And I'm not really sure what Tom Cruise. Yeah, Z knew

Vance Crowe [01:05:36] And Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [01:05:37] Z knew all that stuff. And that's not what I'm writing about, although it is really interesting. But I'm writing about Christian science, which was founded in 1879 by Mary Baker Eddie. She was a former invalid and homeopath who healed herself by, well just reading the Bible I guess. Like she just read the gospels and healed herself of a back injury that she thought would be possibly fatal. And then she set out to teach everyone else how they can heal themselves just by reading and reinterpreting the gospels the way she did. And the,

Vance Crowe [01:06:12] And these are the, just the regular Christian Bible?

Anne M. Stiles [01:06:15] Yeah, well, yeah, basically. I mean, the way she interpreted it though was she said that Jesus had been healing people centuries ago. So why can't we still still heal each other now? Why not? I mean, he healed people through prayer, so maybe we should do that too. And she really believed she had cured herself and other people could cure themselves like Jesus had done. And that he wasn't, she didn't really believe he was a divine being so much as a great teacher who was there to show us the power within ourselves to heal. And you know, 19th century medicine was terrible. So I think people were hungry for anything that might help, even if it was just prayer, you know?

Vance Crowe [01:06:54] So you think that, that that was real, that the medicine was so bad that people were resorting to prayer or that was just where it, it had always been that way and prayer was a big function of, of the way people thought they got better?

Anne M. Stiles [01:07:07] Well, maybe a little of both, but I think 19th century medicine was pretty bad, especially if you were a woman. And the women who were attracted to Christian science, first of all, Christian science was predominantly a female religion. And women were drawn to it mainly because they were nervous invalids. Like they had some kind of anxiety or depression or we would call it that they would've called it probably hysteria or neuro athenia back then. Or maybe they had migraines or some low level psychological or physical condition that medicine had nothing to say about. Or maybe what their doctor would've done is put them in an asylum or given them a rest cure, which is where you had enforced bedrest and forced feeding and you had to gain like 20 pounds before they considered you healthy.

Vance Crowe [01:07:52] Good lord that was going on.

Anne M. Stiles [01:07:54] Yeah, that was pretty crazy stuff. Like

Vance Crowe [01:07:56] Just on the fringes or, or

Anne M. Stiles [01:07:57] No, that was mainstream. I mean that was the number one treatment for nervous illness around that time in America was for nervous women to be put to bed and fed a diet of milk and meat until they gained about 20 pounds on average. And then they were discharged as healthy

Vance Crowe [01:08:13] Good lord. And

Anne M. Stiles [01:08:15] No matter what their mental state was, it was just the weight gain was an index of health.

Vance Crowe [01:08:19] Can you even imagine if that was the prescription that a doctor wrote

Anne M. Stiles [01:08:23] Today? Yeah, well the craziest thing is like you look at the before and after pictures and it's like the reverse of diets today, right? Like

Vance Crowe [01:08:30] The

Anne M. Stiles [01:08:30] After pictures. Well, to be fair, some of these women were anorexic. So for some of them maybe it was the treatment they needed, right? But for other people it was just, you know, they had psychological problems. They didn't need to lie in bed all day eating meat and milk, you know, and gaining 20 pounds. And some of them came out afterwards and were like, what have they done to me? You know? Like I look different, but I feel the same. And it's just so, it wasn't the greatest treatment in the world.

Vance Crowe [01:08:58] Can finding somebody to bed rest when they're depressed? Can't, can't. I, I it would, yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [01:09:03] Wouldn't

Vance Crowe [01:09:03] Help me.

Anne M. Stiles [01:09:04] No. I mean some people were really distraught when they were confined to bed rest and they were depressed, especially manic depressive people, which they didn't know much about manic depression back then. So like Virginia Wolf had the rescue cure, she was probably manic depressive and she wanted to kill herself when she had the rescue. She was just made her miserable to have to lie in bed and eat so much when she felt like running around and not eating anything.

Vance Crowe [01:09:29] Right.

Anne M. Stiles [01:09:29] You know? And so for some people it was exactly the wrong method. Other people liked it, you know, they didn't mind lying in bed and eating. But I think it was at best kind of ineffectual, right? And at worst bad. So, and that was on the good end of the treatments. Like on the bad end, if you were a nervous invalid and you were a woman, they would remove your uterus or your ovaries because those were causing you to have hysteria. Right? Like some people thought that was what caused mental illness in women.

Vance Crowe [01:09:59] Whoa.

Anne M. Stiles [01:10:00] So you could have like an invasive surgery, you could do this bedrest and force feeding thing or you could go to an asylum or you could become a Christian scientist and just pray yourself better. And so I think that's what a lot of people did is they just said, well screw these other treatments, you know, they're so horrible.

Vance Crowe [01:10:16] Pretty big incentive to,

Anne M. Stiles [01:10:18] Yeah. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:10:19] Wow. And so, so where, how, where does it go from her believing that she can heal herself or having this experience where something really positive happened to her to changing over to being a, is it a sect of Christianity?

Anne M. Stiles [01:10:32] Yeah, I mean, I guess you could say that although other Christians aren't really thrilled about Christian science, but I do know some people who've gone from say, you know, another Christian sect to Christian science and found it to be really helpful to them. And there's some things that Eddie was preaching that really spoke to people of her time. Not just the prayer, but also the idea that spiritual matters are what's important and not the body. Right. And I think that was something that people wanted to hear, in part 'cause of what I talked about in my first book. They didn't wanna be reduced to the sum of their neurochemical impulses. Right? So they wanted to be seen as, you know, divine and spiritual as opposed to earthly and bodily. So she was really speaking to a deep need. And this is kind of off the cuff because most Christian scientists are more conservative than this. But I actually know a gay man in West Hollywood who's a Christian scientist. And he converted to that because he just said it spoke to him. And this particular denomination or church that he's in is pretty liberal. They don't care that he's gay. They don't care that he goes to the doctor sometimes. You know, they're not like

Vance Crowe [01:11:39] They're the Methodist of Christian science of,

Anne M. Stiles [01:11:40] They're just laid back.

Vance Crowe [01:11:42] Okay. They're

Anne M. Stiles [01:11:42] The laid back Christian scientists.

Vance Crowe [01:11:44] The, the, the, so when I came home after hearing you talk about it and you have way more interesting things in this, but I, I came home and watched some of the videos of people doing an introduction to Christian science.

Anne M. Stiles [01:11:55] Hmm. And

Vance Crowe [01:11:56] One of the things that I've, that struck me there was that it was a message of empowerment. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [01:12:02] If,

Vance Crowe [01:12:02] If only that it was, you should believe that the thing that's going on in your life right now doesn't have to be forever if you just, if you just commit yourself to changing it.

Anne M. Stiles [01:12:12] Yeah. Sort of this idea of mind over matter, like you feel empowered to change your life and change yourself. And I think the most important thing I wanted to get across in my book is just, you know, it's not just Christian science. That's one sect of this much broader movement called New Thought, which is the secular side of this. Which is just that idea that your thoughts have the power to change the world and change you and send you in a new trajectory. Like if you look at Oprah for instance, like she's a big new thought proponent. She's still promoting this in the present day without calling it New Thought or that book The Secret that came out in 2006, you know, and sold like 30 million copies or something. I mean, it's just people are still hungry for this idea that we are in control. We are in charge just through our thoughts. And I think we all know life doesn't necessarily work like that, right? But people want that message.

Vance Crowe [01:13:06] So for people that are not familiar with The Secret, what, what is the core message of that book?

Anne M. Stiles [01:13:12] Just the idea that if you wish for something and think about it a lot, it will happen to you. Like, if you wanna lose weight, just think about being skinny and you'll be skinny. Or if you wanna overcome cancer, just think about curing your cancer and you'll get well, you know, like

Vance Crowe [01:13:27] Is that, is that the way they would describe it? Would that be the, the definition that they would say? Yeah, I agree with what she's saying there.

Anne M. Stiles [01:13:32] Well I think, yeah, I mean I don't know if Rhonda Byrne is the person who wrote the book and she basically says that in the opening pages of The Secret is like, yeah, just fixate on what you want and it will come to you. It's called the Law of Attraction.

Vance Crowe [01:13:46] That's right. Yeah. The

Anne M. Stiles [01:13:47] Law of

Vance Crowe [01:13:47] Attraction. That's

Anne M. Stiles [01:13:48] Right. Yeah. And that's, it sounds farfetched, but people bought this book in droves and watched her movie and her documentary and so, oh,

Vance Crowe [01:13:56] I mean I probably have had the book The Secret given to me two or three times and and had many really many people tell me about it. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [01:14:05] I had, people would give me like Chicken Soup for the Soul and that's kind of a similar thing, like positive happy stories feel good stories, you know, not quite the same as The Secret, but I felt like it was kind of a similar vein, you know? Oh,

Vance Crowe [01:14:18] That's really, really interesting. We would always read those books when we were, when we were sick as a kid. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [01:14:23] That

Vance Crowe [01:14:23] Would be one of the books that you could get that in Reader's Digest.

Anne M. Stiles [01:14:27] I don't think I ever actually read it though, so I can't tell you actually what is in those Chicken Soup for the Soul books.

Vance Crowe [01:14:32] Oh, they're exactly what you're thinking.

Anne M. Stiles [01:14:33] Yeah. They're

Vance Crowe [01:14:34] Like the Reader's Digest when people write in and tell a story about, you know, some experience they had

Anne M. Stiles [01:14:39] Some

Vance Crowe [01:14:39] Turning point and how it got so much better.

Anne M. Stiles [01:14:42] Yeah. And I think people just like hearing those uplifting stories and they think that it's good for you like eating your vegetables to hear things like this. And I think to a certain extent that's true. But it's also important to be realistic. You know, this is one thing, a major critic of new Thought called Barbara Aaron Reich has said, and she's also just a historian who's really well known, but she says, you know, realism is what we need to focus on, not overly pessimistic thinking, not overly positive thinking, but just being in the middle, you know, so that you recognize incoming threats, you can ward them off 'cause that's what humans are supposed to do, but not get into an overly negative mindset either.

Vance Crowe [01:15:23] Well it's interesting that you would that that that term realism is one because in in international relations, which is what I studied at the graduate level realism is a, is is an actual philosophy on international relations. And it basically says whoever has the power does whatever they want. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [01:15:42] And

Vance Crowe [01:15:43] All of the international treaties that are going on, none of this exists without guns essentially. Wow.

Anne M. Stiles [01:15:49] And,

Vance Crowe [01:15:49] And they say guns and money and that and that. Anybody that thinks that other things that affect international relations are just in la la land. I mean I don't know that all realists would say that but, but I, if you boil it down, it's power is absolute and it's the only thing that matters.

Anne M. Stiles [01:16:06] Well that's kind of disturbing, but I mean there's some truth to it. Like if you read Machiavelli, you know, I mean isn't that kind of his theory too is like it's all about manipulating people by creating the impression that you have power and that you have Yeah. Might makes right. Sort of thing. So I mean, I don't know, positive thinking maybe is sort of benign compared to that. But you also wanna be realistic in the sense that you acknowledge bad things that could potentially happen and take, you know, preventative measures. Right. Like an extreme example would be a man who is a Christian scientist who didn't use a seatbelt 'cause he thought, I'm gonna think positive, no accident will happen to me. You know, and this is an actual story I read in a book about Christian science by a former believer who said her father would never wear a seat belt and he never let them wear seat belts. He

Vance Crowe [01:16:58] Never let his kids wear seat

Anne M. Stiles [01:16:59] Belts. He never let his kids wear seat belts. And I thought this is just foolish. Right? Like anyone could see, I mean even Mary Baker Eddie would probably, if she were alive when seat belts were a a thing would probably say Wear your seatbelt. You know what I mean? That's just, he took it way too far.

Vance Crowe [01:17:14] And how far does the religion ask for them to take it?

Anne M. Stiles [01:17:17] Well, okay, so Eddie courted controversy by saying that nobody could go to the doctor anymore. Basically because you had to really believe until like demonstrate your faith, you couldn't go to the doctor.

Vance Crowe [01:17:28] Well that makes your disdain for this sound a little bit more clear. Yeah. If it, 'cause before it was like these people are positive thinking and I don't like it. But if you're saying now this positive thinking goes to the extent that they are not going to seek medical care. Well,

Anne M. Stiles [01:17:42] And it depends on the sect. Like Christian scientists forbid most kinds of medical care, although they do allow obstetrics bone setting and dentistry for various reasons, but they don't like other new thought secs are more open and they say like, you can go to the doctor just also pray about it. You know? So I think that's more realistic and more open and more helpful. And I think one of the reasons Eddie Forbade medicine was just to set herself apart from all those other sex that were bringing up around the same time she wanted to say We're the most pure, we're the most serious. And I think that's something that Christian science maybe, you know, shot itself in the foot by being too extreme on, on that count.

Vance Crowe [01:18:24] Well and Christian science, it was interesting because I had thought it was much bigger because there's all these Christian science reading rooms.

Anne M. Stiles [01:18:30] Yeah. I mean they're everywhere. What,

Vance Crowe [01:18:32] What are those?

Anne M. Stiles [01:18:33] Well those are places where you go to read church authorized readings. So the church has a publishing wing and they authorized certain literature. They say like, okay, so you can read Eddie's Science and Health, which is her book. You can read the Bible, you can read publications like the Christian Science Monitor, which is put out by the church. You can read the Christian Science Journals, you can read certain other books by Eddie. But that's it. Like you're not really supposed to read anything else. So you go to these reading rooms and you can focus on these uplifting works.

Vance Crowe [01:19:07] And, and what's interesting is for how many of those there are, there was only at the height of Christian Science, there were only, what, 200,000 members is that right? Two,

Anne M. Stiles [01:19:15] 230,000 members approximately. And actually Eddie Forbade counting of the members. Like she wouldn't publish membership numbers. And that was partly because I think the church had sort of outsized influence. So people thought it was bigger than it actually was. And like today they only have tens of thousands of members, but they won't publish actual numbers 'cause it's gotten so small.

Vance Crowe [01:19:37] And what is the Christian Science Monitor?

Anne M. Stiles [01:19:40] Oh sorry. That is a newspaper that they put out. That's actually, it's a really good newspaper. I mean the only thing that's Christian science about it, it's not overtly religious, but they try to be not very sensational. Like they take out gory imagery or gory details or negative stuff that doesn't necessarily need to be in there. And they just give you the facts and try to put a positive spin on it. And I really like the Christian Science Monitor. I think it's the, the best thing the church has produced. And it's not really religious. You're just getting news in a way that's not sensational and not, it's not like CNN where everything is click bait, you know? I mean it's real articles about real stories about real things, but taking out the sensationalism.

Vance Crowe [01:20:23] And while you were writing this book, what, what, you know you had discoveries when you wrote your dissertation. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [01:20:29] And your

Vance Crowe [01:20:29] First book. What discoveries did you have here?

Anne M. Stiles [01:20:31] Well the coolest thing I got to do was I actually got money to go to the Mary Baker Eddie Library in Boston, which is at the church headquarters. And I talked to actual Christian scientists and talk to them about their beliefs and about the fiction that they read, just to try to get a sense of what are these people reading, what are they thinking? And they were so nice and I mean they're kind of known for being a very nice group of people. They're kind of used to being teased about their beliefs. So anyone who's interested in a nice way, they're like really thankful for, you know. And so I found them really helpful to talk to and they introduced me to just what they like to read in terms of literature. And that gave me like an insight into their worldview. And they told me about like if I had questions about the faith, you know, they would answer them as best they could. And that was really helpful too 'cause I've never known any believers, you know, or at least not that many. So

Vance Crowe [01:21:26] Yeah, if you couldn't find the answer in a book, then you didn't necessarily have access to.

Anne M. Stiles [01:21:29] Right. And there's certain things that people won't necessarily tell you. Like how is life lived day to day? If you're a Christian scientist, what do you do if you get sick? You know, what happens? And

Vance Crowe [01:21:39] What did they, what did you find out from them?

Anne M. Stiles [01:21:42] I found out that they really liked The Secret Garden.

Vance Crowe [01:21:45] The book?

Anne M. Stiles [01:21:45] Yeah, the book by Francis Hodgson Burnett. And they didn't realize that she was actually interested in Christian science and dabbled in the faith. They didn't even know that

Vance Crowe [01:21:54] You told them that. Yeah,

Anne M. Stiles [01:21:55] I told them that and they said, oh we always really love this book. But we never knew she was a Christian scientist or she wasn't really technically a Christian scientist. She was just interested but they didn't even really know that. And they really love some of the new thought fiction like Ann of Green Gables, which isn't strictly Christian science, but has some of the core ideas and

Vance Crowe [01:22:14] Like what this is gonna be mind blowing to people because there's gonna be a lot, I, I would guess I have a, a big agriculture audience and Anna Green Gables would be one that they've read.

Anne M. Stiles [01:22:23] Yeah, sure. Well Anna Green Gables is more new thought. It's not Christian science. And some people would argue that it's not a new thought novel either because the author's Presbyterian and she was a minister's wife, so she was a serious respected Presbyterian. But like other people who were in other sects could be interested in new thought. You could be a Baptist, you could be an atheist and be interested in new thought. You'd be a Buddhist, you could be a Catholic. You know, you didn't really have to stay strictly within any one Right. Sect, you could still practice new thought kind of on the side. And so I think that's how new thought made its way into Ann Queen Gables is, and without compromising Montgomery status as like an eminent Presbyterian, right, she could still be a good churchgoer and minister's wife and, and yet dabble in new thought.

Vance Crowe [01:23:12] And what other books are that are in common, common circulation do you think had influenced by that?

Anne M. Stiles [01:23:19] Well, the Pollyanna book of course. And actually there's several Pollyanna books that people don't really read anymore, but they're familiar with through the Disney movie, Rebecca Sunnybrook Farm, the Little Engine that could really, I think I can, I think I can.

Vance Crowe [01:23:33] Oh my gosh.

Anne M. Stiles [01:23:34] You know, getting up that road

Vance Crowe [01:23:35] And you have actual evidence of that that's not just like, hey I think there's a book that's positive thought. And then,

Anne M. Stiles [01:23:39] Yeah, I mean it's been documented. Like there's connections and lots of Shirley Temple

Vance Crowe [01:23:45] Connections is in the author is is

Anne M. Stiles [01:23:48] The author was drawing on new thought or new people in new thought or was themselves in new thought in some way, you know.

Vance Crowe [01:23:56] Interesting. And then you said Shirley Temple. Oh

Anne M. Stiles [01:23:58] Yeah. Shirley Temple films. Like I actually wrote an epilogue to the book about Shirley Temple movies and how a lot of them draw on new thought ideas because in the Great Depression people were, well they were depressed, right? Like they didn't have a lot of money, they didn't have a lot of food. Times were tough. So positive thinking was one thing they turned to as a way to kind of brighten their day. And children as vehicles of positive thinking were really popular, like bright attractive young children and orphans with rags to richest stories. This was highly desirable. So I think that's one reason for her extreme popularity at this time.

Vance Crowe [01:24:35] Wow. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [01:24:36] So

Vance Crowe [01:24:36] In order to get the research for this, are you watching Shirley Temple movies?

Anne M. Stiles [01:24:41] I actually did. I spent a couple weekends just watching them on YouTube 'cause a lot of 'em are available that way. And yeah, I I, that was interesting. I'd never actually seen a lot of 'em before, but a friend of mine told me, she said, you really need to watch Shirley Temple movies. This really applies to your project. And she was absolutely a hundred percent right. It really did.

Vance Crowe [01:25:04] That's amazing. Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [01:25:05] And

Vance Crowe [01:25:05] That was just serendipitous, just just somebody that happened to know what you were doing and suggested it? Yeah.

Anne M. Stiles [01:25:10] Well she's a film studies person who's in my writing group. I have a writing accountability group and we've actually become kind of well known 'cause we're a really good writing accountability group. Like we check in every day or every week or just whenever we feel like it and we say, you know, I wrote 500 words today, or I'm trying to write 500 words today and I failed, or whatever happened. We just have to be accountable and like say that we did it. Right.

Vance Crowe [01:25:34] And is it, it's pretty effective for you?

Anne M. Stiles [01:25:36] It is. And we also kind of use it as a form of therapy. Whenever we get rejected from some publication or fellowship or something, we're like, oh man, I got rejected from this again. And that happens all the time to academics. So we just kind of use each other for support and as a sounding board and just to hold ourselves accountable.

Vance Crowe [01:25:55] And are writing groups that common

Anne M. Stiles [01:25:58] Actually not really that common. They're not, there are some, but we're one of the most successful ones that I know of, like that we've stayed together the longest. We're really good friends. We go to conferences just to see each other like that kind of thing. Yeahinteresting

Vance Crowe [01:26:11] And how big is a writer's group?

Anne M. Stiles [01:26:13] Well, we used to have five, but now we're down to four and I think four is the perfect size. It's perfect. And is

Vance Crowe [01:26:19] It, 'cause did you kick somebody out?

Anne M. Stiles [01:26:22] No, she actually kind of joined and then left. And I don't know why, but I think she's just really busy. She had a lot of other things going on, but you know, it wasn't our decision. That was her decision.

Vance Crowe [01:26:32] Okay. It wasn't like a drama. The the, the community got together? No,

Anne M. Stiles [01:26:35] No, there was no drama. And

Vance Crowe [01:26:37] Then the, the group four, how long have you been doing that?

Anne M. Stiles [01:26:40] Gosh, like over five years I think. And one of them is a friend of mine from grad school and one of them is a friend of mine from another conference I used to go to in grad school. And one of them is a friend of hers who is a lot younger and is not in the field anymore, but wants to keep writing her book that she was working on in grad school, even though she's not a professor. But, so all of us just wanna write and three of us are academics, one is working more in nonprofits, but we all just wanna write our books and get them done. And so that's why we're there. So

Vance Crowe [01:27:14] Speaking of academia and the, the, the school year has just begun. What will you be teaching this year?

Anne M. Stiles [01:27:20] I'm teaching my sci-fi course again and I'm excited about that. And I'm teaching in a different articulation of my literature for pre-meds course, which is technically called Introduction to Medical Humanities. And I just had to change out the text because I've been teaching the same ones for a really long time. So I hope the students like the new text that I chose and you never know what they're gonna say.

Vance Crowe [01:27:40] Oh you do that because you get bored with bored with your content.

Anne M. Stiles [01:27:44] Well, and also I had taught two different versions and I basically, there are two different course numbers for this class and each one has to be different than the other. So I had to come up with a new slate of material. So, and I'm helping students who wanna get jobs with, with placement, that's what we call it, where you help help them in their quest to find jobs. And that's like a little extra side course that I'm doing

Vance Crowe [01:28:07] And that Wait, so you mean because they're writing their personal statements or they're,

Anne M. Stiles [01:28:11] Well 'cause they're trying to get an academic job and it's a really hard process. Like you have to write a cv, you have to write a letter, you have to have letters of recommendation that are very good. You have to have a strong writing sample. And then if you get to the interview phase, then you have to have practice with interviewing. Right. And then if you get to the job talk phase, which is the second interview, then you have to basically do a lecture on your work. So they need practice with that. So it's like a whole suite of things that I try to help them with.

Vance Crowe [01:28:40] Wow.

Anne M. Stiles [01:28:41] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:28:42] Well it sounds like you have busyness coming up and I Oh my gosh.

Anne M. Stiles [01:28:46] Yeah,

Vance Crowe [01:28:47] Definitely. I'm, I'm so grateful that, that you were able to come over and make this happen and I've, I've, I feel like this was a fantastic conversation so we should have you back again.

Anne M. Stiles [01:28:57] Okay, well thank you so much. I mean, I'm really glad to be able to, to share more about my work and my experiences and hopefully people will come away knowing a little more about vampires and Christian science than they did before.

Vance Crowe [01:29:10] So, and if people wanted to get a hold of you to learn more or talk or share anything, what would be the best way for them to do that?

Anne M. Stiles [01:29:17] Well I think if you just Google my name like Anne Stiles, like my slew profile will come up and that has my contact info and my email and stuff. So that's probably the easiest way.

Vance Crowe [01:29:28] That sounds like a great thing. Yeah, I'll put a connection to it in the show notes.

Anne M. Stiles [01:29:30] Awesome.

Vance Crowe [01:29:31] Alright, well thank you so much for stopping by.

Anne M. Stiles [01:29:33] Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

Vance Crowe [01:29:36] Well that's it for today's interview. I want to thank Anne Stiles for sitting down with me. We did it at the very last minute. You can tell the editing on this is a little bit faster. I had to, to run and gun to try and get this so that way I could stay on my publishing schedule. But this was a fantastic conversation. As soon as we turn the cameras off, Anne and I continued to talk about all sorts of things. We, so there is no doubt in my mind that I will invite Anne back to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, consider leaving a comment or maybe throwing up some reviews. Anything that we can do to spread this podcast out, mix it all the more worth the time and we continue to have some really interesting people sending me guests. And I'm, I'm really excited and interested in that. There's some people that are musicians. I had some good advice from a family member that said I should try and expand out into the arts. So we did literature this week and we'll do a musician in the next few weeks and, and from there, I'd, I'd be really interested in hearing if you have any suggestions on somebody that I should interview. I'm gonna close out today and just off of the, the top of my head, I wanted to share with you somebody that I think is an interesting Twitter feed. His name is Jesse Hoff. He's a friend of mine. He is a geneticist. He focuses, I think a lot on, on cattle genetics. And he goes by hoff's beef, that's H-O-F-F-S beef, BEEF, just two e's.

Vance Crowe [01:31:08] I'm not sure how many I said there, but he's a character. He always shows up. He has very different ways of looking at the world than I do. I don't always agree with him, but I am always pleased to see him in my Twitter feed or to send me a text about some interesting article or podcast he's listened to. I think you'll find him interesting too. And there's nothing he loves more than fighting back and forth. So if you're the type of person that likes to push back on ideas on Twitter, Jesse is a worthy adversary. So that's it for this week. We'll be back next Wednesday. Thanks for joining us and have a great week.