Conversations With Landscape

Karl Benediktsson is Professor of Geography in the Department of Geography and Tourism at the University of Iceland. Katrín Anna Lund is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography and Tourism at the University of Iceland.

'The central theme is clear and persuasive, the focus on northern landscapes fascinating throughout. Conversations with Landscape offers a consistently excellent set of essays which will be welcomed and widely read by anthropologists, cultural geographers, visual and aesthetic theorists, and, in particular, the wide interdisciplinary community of landscape scholars and students.' John Wylie, University of Exeter, UK 'Collectively the essays of Conversations With Landscape create an innovative landscape of their own, refusing to take landscape and human engagement with it for granted. Indeed, there is much to explore. These are fascinating tales - theoretical, ethnographic, and historical - about the moving landscape. Not only is it forever changing, it touches people in a variety of ways.' Gísli Pálsson, University of Iceland, Iceland '... unlike the rich and sometimes overwhelming experience of fieldwork for the archaeologist or anthropologist which becomes reduced, hidden or submerged and at times completely lost in the translation to text and final publication; here people's experiences of Iceland are vividly communicated to us, opening up our own expectations. Rather than being objective and detached, here relational experiences are created between observers and their surroundings. Rather than merely defining the experience, we too are taken on the journey.' Australian Archaeology We are deeply indebted to the co-editors, both in the geography department at the University of Iceland, for not only introducing us to this theme with contributions from Nordic (mostly Icelandic) scholars and others interested in circumpolar environments, but also for stimulating the rest of us to explore the subject of conversations in some new lights... I believe that the contents will resonate with members of the several scholarly communities, not just those interested in Nordic landscapes, literature, environmental ethics, human ecology, social theory, and biology but a

• Chapter 1 Introduction: Starting a Conversation with Landscape, Katrín Anna Lund, Karl Benediktsson; Chapter 2 Conversations with Ourselves in Metaphysical Experiences of Nature, Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir; Chapter 3 The Limits of our “Conversations with Nature”, Gabriel Malenfant; Chapter 4 Landscape as Conversation, Edda R.H. Waage; Chapter 5 Time for Fluent Landscapes, Oscar Aldred; Chapter 6 Grief Paves the Way, Arnar Árnason; Chapter 7 Slipping into Landscape, Katrín Anna Lund, Margaret Willson; Chapter 8 Landscape and Aesthetic Values: Not Only in the Eye of the Beholder, Guðbjörg R. Jóhannesdóttir; Chapter 9 The Sublime, Ugliness and “Terrible Beauty” in Icelandic Landscapes, Emily Brady; Chapter 10 Transporting Nature: Landscape in Icelandic Urban Culture, Anna Jóhannsdóttir, Ástráður Eysteinsson; Chapter 11 Ways of Addressing Nature in a Northern Context: Romantic Poet and Natural Scientist Jónas Hallgrímsson, Sveinn Yngvi Egilsson; Chapter 12 A Stroll through Landscapes of Sheep and Humans, Karl Benediktsson; Chapter 13 Sentience, Anne Brydon; Chapter 14 The Empty Wilderness: Seals and Animal Representation, Bryndís Snæbjömsdóttir, Mark Wilson; Chapter 15 Aurora Landscapes: Affective Atmospheres of Light and Dark, Tim Edensor; Chapter 16 Epilogue, Tim Ingold;