The Scarlet Letter: Customs House - Chapter 3
Close Reads Podcast
Goldberry Studios
4.4 • 823 Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2023
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s become an annual tradition to invite the one-and-only Karen Swallow Prior on the show to discuss a classic novel, and this time around it’s Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter. In this first episode of the series, we chatted about that difficult opening section, “The Customs House”; why Karen chose to include this book in her series of annotated classic novels for B&H Publishing (alongside Austen, Hardy, Conrad, Bronte, etc.); ways Hawthorne seems to be working out his connection to his family’s long and fraught history; and much more! Happy listening!
Close Reads HQ is a community-supported endeavor. To help ensure that future episodes get produced, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit closereads.substack.com/subscribe
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, everyone, David Kern here. Before we get to this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know about two different things. One of them is I wanted to remind you that we have a close reads on the road event coming up in Atlanta in August. We are very excited to be talking about Southern short stories and the themes of home and faith. It's going to be a great time. |
| 0:22.1 | I'll be there. Sean will be there. Heidi will be there. Tim will be there. In fact, we're meeting at Tim's |
| 0:26.2 | church. And on the Saturday, the Friday night, rather, we are going to be going to watch our Shakespeare |
| 0:31.2 | play and have a great meal together. That's part of the registration. If you want to learn more about this, head over to closereads.com, there's still some space left. We would love to see you there. Now, I also want to let you |
| 0:43.3 | know about the sponsor for this episode. It comes from the Searcy Institute's apprenticeship program. |
| 0:50.4 | Children are souls to be nourished, not products to be measured, and children also become what they behold. |
| 0:56.4 | As teachers, these truths impact lessons, students, and ourselves. |
| 1:01.9 | Do you want to contemplate how these truths impact your teaching? |
| 1:05.3 | And does participating with a small cohort who read, discuss, and teach together interest you? |
| 1:10.4 | If so, please consider the |
| 1:12.3 | SIRC Institute Master Teacher Apprenticeship Program. They gather in person for a week in the summer |
| 1:17.3 | and a half week in February, and the rest of the year the conversations are over Zoom. To learn |
| 1:22.6 | more, you can visit their website, which includes an option to attend a live office hour with one of |
| 1:27.4 | their head mentors. Seats are limited, so if you would like to claim one, visit their website, which includes an option to attend a live office hour with one of their |
| 1:27.6 | head mentors. Seats are limited, so if you would like to claim one, please contact Andrea |
| 1:33.3 | Lapinski, the head of the program, at Andrea, that's A-N-D-R-E-A at surcee institute.org, or you can |
| 1:41.8 | visit surcy institute.org to apply. Again, that's sure institute.org to apply. |
| 1:45.3 | Again, that's surcee institute.org to apply. |
| 1:47.9 | Or if you'd like to claim a seat right now, |
| 1:50.2 | you can email Andrea at usurcy institute.org. |
| 1:54.4 | So thanks to the Searcy apprenticeship program for helping sponsor this episode |
| 1:58.0 | and making this podcast possible this week. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Goldberry Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Goldberry Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.