"Overall, the focus of Deming's study is refined and often brilliant, most especially in the freshness it brings to the poetics of Emerson."--The Wallace Stevens Journal
"Listening on All Sides is a nuanced and meticulous examination of the philosophical possibilities of and in literature . . . an ambitious book that enjoins the reader to pay careful attention to the slipperiness of texts, to notice how those moments where the possibilities of belief are articulated, and above all to understand how writing remains in continual conversation with itself as the means by which aversive thinking might be maintained."--
"Richard Deming's book advances a project of sensual reorientation in the spirit of Stanley Cavell's ordinary language philosophy, and his achievements are noteworthy in a few directions, including a sophisticated intertextuality, a knack for aphorisms, and most importantly a contribution to literary ethics where the ear can play a central role."--Philological Quarterly
"Richard Deming's Listening on All Sides will take a serious place in the decades-long revival of writing about Emerson."--Timothy Gould, Modern Philology
"Richard Deming's Listening on All Sides: Toward an Emersonian Ethics of Reading is a beautifully written book that approaches recent thinking about Emerson, especially that of Stanley Cavell and Richard Poirier, from the point of view of poetics rather than philosophy or literary theory. Demings study of what he calls 'Emersonian modernism' includes refreshing readings of Dickinson, Melville, Williams, and Stevens. The book is both philosophically engaging and meticulously researched."--Charles Bernstein, University of Pennsylvania