ABSTRACT
What I find striking about this roundtable’s wonderful cornucopia of ideas, touching on virtually every corner of contemporary landscape debate, is the consistent tendency to refer to “the landscape” in the singular, as in James Elkins’s closing reference to “the actual landscape” (italics mine). This is particularly notable given the many statements made by roundtable participants to the effect that landscape has a variety of meanings. The tendency to speak in the singular is also notable with respect to another concept, often identified with landscape by the roundtable-that of nature. And, while at it, one might as well note the panel’s tendency to speak of time and space in the singular, though we see the occasional caveat. We know better, as Elkins suggests, but our critical facilities seem to be put on hold when confronted by “what we persist in pretending is the actual landscape.”
