Nadya Williams and Jeff Bilbro discuss Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter — its Puritan setting, Hawthorne's fraught ancestry, and the novel's three responses to sin: moralistic judgment, escapist relativism, and Hester's redemptive middle path. They also touch on Hawthorne's friendships with the Transcendentalists, the dangers of cancel culture, and Jeff's forthcoming book on AI and creaturely intelligence.

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  • 00:00 - Introduction & What Is a Classic?
  • 05:10 - American Classics & the Year 250
  • 07:15 - Short Books vs. Long Books
  • 09:33 - Hawthorne: Life & Context
  • 14:11 - The Plot: Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, Pearl
  • 17:23 - Three Responses to Sin
  • 25:08 - Dimmesdale & Self-Deception
  • 29:10 - Pearl & Spiritual Formation
  • 33:43 - Chillingworth: Truth-Hunting for Power
  • 36:17 - What Christians Should Notice
  • 42:16 - Creaturely Intelligence (Jeff's Forthcoming Book)
  • 47:31 - What Classic Would You Have Written?

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