Episodes

  • Episode 37: Reversing the Decline

    Episode 37: Reversing the Decline
    Mar 13 2026

    Welcome to HEART REACTS, an advice podcast for all of us trying to remain emotionally functional through the collapse of late capitalism.


    This week we have a follow-up from a previous questioner who wants more advice on what to do when your union breaks your heart--how to forgive, how to forget, and how to fix a labor movement that often doesn't take its duty of care seriously. And of course we check in about dogs, films, and life in late capitalist hell.


    Stuff We Talk About:

    Crime 101

    Disabled People and Care Workers Must Build Common Cause in the Fight for Better Conditions by Jamie Hale

    Judith Stepan-Norris and Maurice Zeitlin, Left Out: Reds and America’s Industrial Unions

    Nate Holdren, Injury Impoverished: Workplace Accidents, Capitalism, and Law in the Progressive Era

    Erik Loomis, Empire of Timber: Labor Unions and the Pacific Northwest Forests

    Les Leopold, The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi

    Death Panel Podcast


    We are Craig Gent, a writer and researcher living in Leeds, and ⁠Sarah Jaffe⁠, a journalist and author based in London.

    Buy Craig's Book: Cyberboss

    Buy Sarah's Book: From the Ashes

    You can send us your questions at ⁠www.askmeanything.cc/heartreacts⁠.

    This episode was produced by, well, us! We apologize for any inconsistencies in audio quality. If you liked it and want to help keep us going, and help us improve our recording process, you can support us at ⁠patreon.com/HeartReacts⁠. You can subscribe to the show wherever you get podcasts, and please do rate us on those podcast apps!

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • Episode 36: Being Taught Not to Feel

    Episode 36: Being Taught Not to Feel
    Feb 27 2026

    Welcome to HEART REACTS, an advice podcast for all of us trying to remain emotionally functional through the collapse of late capitalism.


    We're back! And we have thoughts on masculinity, heterosexuality, and capitalism. First about the Olympics, and the pleasures and misfires of watching sports through the lens of the nation, and then we answer a letter about being a "lonely male," and how to learn to be comfortable with feeling.


    Stuff We Talk About:

    Men's Freestyle Skiing Big Air Final (Highlights)

    I, Tonya

    Red Army

    Miracle

    Craig: No Crying Shame

    A.S. Hamrah on Tech Won't Save Us


    We are Craig Gent, a writer and researcher living in Leeds, and ⁠Sarah Jaffe⁠, a journalist and author based in London.


    Buy Craig's Book: Cyberboss


    Buy Sarah's Book: From the Ashes


    You can send us your questions at ⁠www.askmeanything.cc/heartreacts⁠.


    This episode was produced by, well, us! We apologize for any inconsistencies in audio quality. If you liked it and want to help keep us going, and help us improve our recording process, you can support us at ⁠patreon.com/HeartReacts⁠. You can subscribe to the show wherever you get podcasts, and please do rate us on those podcast apps!

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    1 hr and 12 mins
  • Episode 35: Patience is a Practice, with Kelly Hayes

    Episode 35: Patience is a Practice, with Kelly Hayes
    Jan 26 2026
    Welcome to HEART REACTS, an advice podcast for all of us trying to remain emotionally functional through the collapse of late capitalism. This week is a special episode, so it's dropping on Monday. We're bringing you a very special guest, Menominee author, organizer, journalist, editor, podcaster, and friend of the show Kelly Hayes. Kelly is just out with a new book that she's edited, a collection of letters to comrades from comrades, for moments when the struggle feels hopeless. It's a form of advice book, and so we thought it would be a great time to get Kelly on to talk about her work, and her concept of "social deskilling," which has been so important to us here at Heart Reacts.Stuff We Talk About:Kelly Hayes, Read This When Things Fall ApartKelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba, Let This Radicalize YouKelly Hayes: Organizing my ThoughtsKelly Hayes: Movement MemosMovement Memos: We Must Burst Our Algorithmic Bubbles and Build Together Across Difference (the Social Deskilling episode)Our social deskilling episode, if you missed itIf Anyone Can Pull off a General Strike, It’s MinnesotansIs Marriage the Building Block of Society? Or Is It Neighbors?Chris Begley, The Next ApocalypseWe are Craig Gent, a writer and researcher living in Leeds, and ⁠Sarah Jaffe⁠, a journalist and author based in London.Buy Craig's Book: CyberbossBuy Sarah's Book: From the AshesYou can send us your questions at ⁠www.askmeanything.cc/heartreacts⁠.This episode was produced by, well, us! We apologize for any inconsistencies in audio quality. If you liked it and want to help keep us going, and help us improve our recording process, you can support us at ⁠patreon.com/HeartReacts⁠. You can subscribe to the show wherever you get podcasts, and please do rate us on those podcast apps! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • E34 Episode 34: Specific Units of Emotionality

    E34 Episode 34: Specific Units of Emotionality
    Jan 8 2026
    Welcome to HEART REACTS, an advice podcast for all of us trying to remain emotionally functional through the collapse of late capitalism. We're back, we survived the holidays, and we have some thoughts on emotional libertarianism to share with you. Some of you have asked what we mean by this term, which we've used occasionally, so we took the opportunity to dig into it a little bit. And then, we answer a question about what it means to be a romantic, anyway.We need your questions!! Send them to us at https://www.askmeanything.cc/heartreactsAlso, Heart Reacts has its own Instagram now! Follow us, send us memes and ideas, leave us comments...Stuff We Talk About:Alexandra Kollontai, The Social Basis of the Female QuestionMichael Hardt “Red Love” Ajay Singh Chaudhary, Sick and TiredHeat at 30: Michael Mann’s electric crime thriller is a film of fire and sadnessKelly Hayes, Read This When Things Fall ApartMarita Alonso, “Las mujeres piensan en el regalo que están dando. Los hombres no”: ¿hay una brecha de género en el arte de regalar?Diane Di Prima, Revolutionary Letter No 19Before Sunrise review – Richard Linklater’s brief encounter defies romantic convention‘Black Bag’ Is a Great Spy Thriller — and an Even Better Marriage DramaWe are Craig Gent, a writer and researcher living in Leeds, and ⁠Sarah Jaffe⁠, a journalist and author based in London.Buy Craig's Book: CyberbossBuy Sarah's Book: From the AshesYou can send us your questions at ⁠www.askmeanything.cc/heartreacts⁠.This episode was produced by, well, us! We apologize for any inconsistencies in audio quality. If you liked it and want to help keep us going, and help us improve our recording process, you can support us at ⁠patreon.com/HeartReacts⁠. You can subscribe to the show wherever you get podcasts, and please do rate us on those podcast apps! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    1 hr and 23 mins
  • Episode 33: I'm So In Love I Want a Baby That Has Your Face

    Episode 33: I'm So In Love I Want a Baby That Has Your Face
    Dec 12 2025
    Welcome to HEART REACTS, an advice podcast for all of us trying to remain emotionally functional through the collapse of late capitalism. Heart Reacts now has an Instagram! Follow the pod directly for faster updates and more relationship memes.This week, we check in about "chatfishing" and cognitive dissonance around AI, and then we consider whether or not (and how) to parent inside the coupled norm.Stuff We Talk About:This Hanukkah, Let’s Bring Back Judith Menorahs‘I realised I’d been ChatGPT-ed into bed’: how ‘Chatfishing’ made finding love on dating apps even weirderConversation on Workplace Trust with Sarah MosseriSarah: Interview with Emily Bender and Alex Hanna on The AI ConJames Muldoon, Love MachinesThe right’s callous overdiagnosis bandwagon is rolling. Wes Streeting should not be on itIron Ladies filmAgainst The Grain: Archiving anarcho-punkLogic(s) Magazine Issue 23: Land (with Craig's article!)Jules Joanne Gleeson: This Infamous ProposalSarah: Family Planning (review essay)Engels, "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State" Madeline Lane-McKinley, Solidarity with ChildrenMichèle Barrett and Mary McIntosh, The Anti-Social FamilyAngela Davis: Women and Capitalism:Dialectics of Oppression and LiberationDavid Collinson and Stephen Ackroyd, “Resistance, Misbehavior and Dissent”Dorinne K. Kondo, Crafting Selves: Power, Gender, and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese WorkplaceWe are Craig Gent, a writer and researcher living in Leeds, and ⁠Sarah Jaffe⁠, a journalist and author based in London.Buy Craig's Book: CyberbossBuy Sarah's Book: From the AshesYou can send us your questions at ⁠www.askmeanything.cc/heartreacts⁠.This episode was produced by, well, us! We apologize for any inconsistencies in audio quality. If you liked it and want to help keep us going, and help us improve our recording process, you can support us at ⁠patreon.com/HeartReacts⁠. You can subscribe to the show wherever you get podcasts, and please do rate us on those podcast apps! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    1 hr and 15 mins
  • Episode 32: Big Linklater Energy

    Episode 32: Big Linklater Energy
    Nov 28 2025

    Welcome to HEART REACTS, an advice podcast for all of us trying to remain emotionally functional through the collapse of late capitalism.


    We apologize for being late! Life, work, and the collapse of...well, you know, got in the way.

    But this week we talk once again about what to do when your union breaks your heart, and then spend a while considering how to avoid breaking someone else's. What do you do when communication on screens feels easier than communication face to face (and body to body)?


    Stuff We Talk About:

    Mattie Lubchansky comic

    Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism

    Audre Lorde, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House

    Sarah, Worker Centers, Where Causes Cohere and Forge Power

    Antonio Gramsci, “Americanism and Fordism”

    James W. Carey, Communication as Culture

    Walter Benjamin, “On the Concept of History”

    Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

    The “Before” Trilogy


    We are Craig Gent, a writer and researcher living in Leeds, and ⁠Sarah Jaffe⁠, a journalist and author based in London.


    Buy Craig's Book: Cyberboss

    Buy Sarah's Book: From the Ashes


    You can send us your questions at ⁠www.askmeanything.cc/heartreacts⁠.

    This episode was produced by, well, us! We apologize for any inconsistencies in audio quality. If you liked it and want to help keep us going, and help us improve our recording process, you can support us at ⁠patreon.com/HeartReacts⁠. You can subscribe to the show wherever you get podcasts, and please do rate us on those podcast apps!

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Episode 31: Everything is Embarrassing

    Episode 31: Everything is Embarrassing
    Nov 6 2025

    Welcome to HEART REACTS, an advice podcast for all of us trying to remain emotionally functional through the collapse of late capitalism.


    This week, we're low on questions so we thought we'd talk to each other about a couple of viral relationship articles that are in productive tension. We poke at our ongoing discomfort with terminology, the still-brokenness of heterosexuality, and why caring about stuff is cool again. And then we answer a question about organizing, capacity, and crisis.


    We need your questions!! Send them to us at https://www.askmeanything.cc/heartreacts


    Stuff We Talk About:

    What Is “Chalance” and Why Is Everybody Looking for It on Dating Apps?

    Is Having A Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?

    Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

    W.E.B. Du Bois The Souls of Black Folk

    bell hooks, All About Love

    Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State

    Alyssa Battistoni, Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature

    Radical Emprints: Fight With the Tools that are Uniquely Yours


    We are Craig Gent, a writer and researcher living in Leeds, and ⁠Sarah Jaffe⁠, a journalist and author based in London.

    Buy Craig's Book: Cyberboss

    Buy Sarah's Book: From the Ashes

    You can send us your questions at ⁠www.askmeanything.cc/heartreacts⁠.


    This episode was produced by, well, us! We apologize for any inconsistencies in audio quality. If you liked it and want to help keep us going, and help us improve our recording process, you can support us at ⁠patreon.com/HeartReacts⁠. You can subscribe to the show wherever you get podcasts, and please do rate us on those podcast apps!

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • Episode 30: Down with Ambiguity

    Episode 30: Down with Ambiguity
    Oct 20 2025
    Welcome to HEART REACTS, an advice podcast for all of us trying to remain emotionally functional through the collapse of late capitalism. This week, we're yet again talking about the trials and travails of organizing with other messy humans, and the importance of clarity in both romantic and organizational relationships. (And a sidebar about how much Sarah hates the term "situationship.")Stuff We Talk About:Lynne Segal, Straight SexLynne Segal, Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities and Changing MenMariame Kaba and Shira Hassan, Fumbling Towards Repair: A Workbook for Community Accountability PractitionersJust Practice collaborativePaolo Gerbaudo, The Digital PartyJane McAlevey, Raising Expectations and Raising HellThe dearly departed Big Mood, Little Mood podcastSarah: The Radical Organizing that Paved the Way for LA's Teachers' StrikeDiane Di Prima: Revolutionary Letter #8 (online) and Revolutionary Letters (book)We are Craig Gent, a writer and researcher living in Leeds, and ⁠Sarah Jaffe⁠, a journalist and author based in London.Buy Craig's Book: CyberbossBuy Sarah's Book: From the AshesYou can send us your questions at ⁠www.askmeanything.cc/heartreacts⁠.This episode was produced by, well, us! We apologize for any inconsistencies in audio quality. If you liked it and want to help keep us going, and help us improve our recording process, you can support us at ⁠patreon.com/HeartReacts⁠. You can subscribe to the show wherever you get podcasts, and please do rate us on those podcast apps! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    1 hr and 4 mins