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Dumbarton Oaks Colloquia on the History of Landscape Architecture
Interlacing Words and Things
Bridging the Nature-Culture Opposition in Gardens and Landscape
Stephen Bann

Interlacing Words and Things: Bridging the Nature-Culture Opposition in Gardens and Landscape examines the various ways in which the natural world has been transformed through the creative use of language. The nine contributors do not assume that there is an opposition between nature and culture, but rather emphasize that forms of language are embedded in our understanding and appreciation of the natural environment. Their illustrated essays consider the relationship between language and the natural world, as it has been mediated in different cultures and at different periods by broad notions such as landscape and the garden. Complementing the richness of the examples covered in the volume is the message that writing must still be integrally involved in the creative remaking of the natural world.