The Quiet Revolution: The Transformation and Reintegration of the Humanities

A transformation has occurred in the humanities during the past four decades which has permitted the humanistic disciplines to reintegrate with each other and with the social sciences. The gradual absorption of Saussurean linguistics has brought about a profound change in our understanding of the relationship between language and the world. This, in turn, has resulted in an age of theory and in the production of metalanguages which reinforce the connective power of the humanistic disciplines. Linguistic models have replaced models borrowed from the natural sciences in partial recognition of the fact that culture is discursively constructed and rooted in specifically historical situations. Imagery, theory, method, and style are borrowed from humanistic disciplines to aid the social sciences as the natural sciences provide fewer relevant models. We are moving toward a new philology or the study of culture as text.