Drawing upon research from a number of fields, this paper explores parallels between new paradigms in the sciences--particularly physics, chemistry, and biology--and new paradigms in reading and literary theory--particularly a socio- or psycholinguistic, semiotic, transactional view of reading and a transactional view of the literary experience. Among the major parallels emphasized in the paper are the following concepts: (1) reality is fundamentally an organic process; (2) there is no sharp separation between observer and what is observed, reader and text, and reader/text and content; (3) the whole (universe, sentence, text, and so forth) is not merely the sum of "parts" that can be separately identified; and (4) meaning is determined through transactions between observer and observed, reader and text, reader/text and context, and among textual elements on and across various levels. (Author/FL)