Mack Hagood is a scholar, writer, and creator who specializes in sound and listening. Best known for his research on the cultural origins and social effects of technologies such as noise-canceling headphones, Hagood's writing, media work, and public lectures vividly animate the world of sound. In 2024, he was awarded a Public Scholar grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Mack has been interviewed by NBC, BBC, CBC, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal and many others.
Phantom Power is a monthly newsletter on sound and listening. It features essays and interviews on the culture, politics, physics, and philosophy of sound, as well as reviews of new music, film sound, sound art, and books on sound.
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In the early 2010s self-taught guitarist Tashi Dorji was recording improvised guitar explorations in his home near Asheville, North Carolina. These self-released outings drew on his unique mix of musical influences from the Buddhist music of his childhood in Bhutan to the Western music he discovered through shortwave
Siavash Amini is an experimental composer living in Tehran, trying to live his life and hone his craft amid United States bombings and government crackdowns. Amazingly, he is still creating. August 28th will see release of his collaboration with the American theorist and poet Eugene Thacker, Songs for Sad Poets
While Mack takes a summer break, we bring you this treat from the archives: the full-members-only version of his 2024 interview with beloved audiobook narrator Robin Miles. This episode features almost an hour of additional content, including our What’s Good segment where Robin unsurprisingly makes some really
While Mack takes a summer break, we bring you this treat from the archives: the full-members-only version of his 2024 interview with the influential theorist of noise and affect theory, Dr. Marie Thompson. This episode features 40 minutes of additional content on Thompson’s research on tinnitus and
Mack speaks internationally at venues ranging from music festivals to Ivy League universities. Hire Mack to speak about sound, listening, and communication at your organization.
Contact for Speaking, or See His Speaking History and ScheduleA cultural study of sound and control. What we cancel. What we keep. What we can’t hear anymore.
These newsletters are Mack's space to reflect on sound, listening, and the culture around us—plus share early thoughts, event news, and audio picks. Want in? Subscribe to stay in the loop.
Sound stirs us all
Its resonance connects us. Its noise divides. It numbs us with bombast and breaks us with the slightest whisper.
We've built instruments to make it, laws to tame it, walls to contain it, and great halls to sustain it. We've mic' it, amped it, converted and compressed it, broadcast it, mastered it, remastered it... and never mastered it at all.
Because sound is transgressive: a phantom power that refuses to be contained, canceled, or even limited to living in our ears. Sound can blur your vision, move your body, and change the taste of the food in your mouth.
But sound has a secret: It only becomes *sound* in the minds and bodies of those it touches.
Sound needs us as much as we need it.
My Story