Thinking has come to life again; the cultural treasures of the past, believed to be dead, are being made to speak, in the course of which it turns out that they purpose things altogether different from the familiar, worn-out trivialities they had been presumed to say.
Source: Mark Lilla: The Reckless Mind, p. 12.
I would like to ask what noun the relative clause ("in the course of which…") modifies. Is it really "the past"? I am familiar with the phrase "in the course of time" but in the course of the past seems to me very odd.