Overview of Contemporary Western Thoughts on Writing intricately explores the complex relationship between writing and sense and elucidates philosophical ideas on writing of French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy from the perspectives of touch, coexistence and otherness. Writing is not only the physical act of putting words into form and leaving traces; it is also the authentic mode of existence by which humans creatively self-express which positions sense into a dynamic and incessant production, making it no longer a static representation. Nancy's philosophy of writing presents a novel framework for understanding the sense of existence, of otherness, and of art.

The book Comprehensive Review of Contemporary Western Writing Theories Centering on Jean-Luc Nancy examines Jean-Luc Nancy's ideas on writing within the context of Western cultural thought. It delves deeply into the theoretical origins and philosophical foundations of his thought, focusing on the theoretical connotations, characteristics, and artistic forms of "writing", while fully exploring the academic value of Nancy's writing philosophy. Rather than merely tracing the modern history of writing thought, the book places it within the academic history of writing, exploring the connotation of writing from ancient Greece to the postmodern era. It reveals the trend of writing evolving "from hidden to apparent" and connects writing with sense, the body, art, and literature, centering on "writing." The author, through this survey of writing, presents a comprehensive and multidimensional view of contemporary Western writing and opens up to the infinite possibilities of writing and sense.

Since Derrida's "writing revolution", the writing thought has become an independent philosophical proposition, beginning to break free from its marginalized state. As a medium that can convey meaning and directly communicate with people and the world, writing has strong theoretical tension and reflective value. Systematic reflection on Western writing ideas is also an important dimension in constructing the discourse of current Chinese literary theory. Qi Wang's Comprehensive Review of Contemporary Western Writing Theories Centering on Jean-Luc Nancy revolves around Jean Luc Nancy's writing thought and engages in an interactive dialogue with contemporary Western theories. This dialogue constructs three dimensions of writing thought by sorting out the relationship between writing and meaning, body, art, and literature: openness, difference, and emptiness. These three dimensions generate and promote each other, jointly constructing the multiple facets of Nancy's writing thought.

Jacob Gaboury's scholarly work, Image Objects: The Archaeology of Computer Graphics, delves into the central theme of "objects," augmenting the historical narrative of computer graphics by conducting a meticulous archaeological investigation of five key technological objects: algorithms, computer screen, the standardization of graphical objects, object-oriented programming, and graphics processing units. The primary objective is to establish a foundational account of the origins of computer graphics and scrutinize the profound influence of its development on contemporary society. According to Gaboury, computer graphics transcends mere visual representations to become an integral aspect of computer science history, reshaping computers from mere calculative devices into interactive platforms that hold potential for the future digital milieu, actively contributing to the transformation of the physical world through various channels.

William Morris criticized the aesthetic ugliness of the Victorian era, which is essentially an artist's way of critiquing capitalist modernity. He diagnosed Victorian society with a symptom of "the famine of art", and viewed it as an aesthetic representation of capitalist crisis. He thus elevated "the lesser arts" to stir a redistribution of the collective sensibilities within the community. This approach encouraged artists to return to craftsmanship and create art for the people. Such "aesthetic practice of everyday life," condensed in handicrafts, to some extent reconstructed the sensuous world of individuals and the collective, highlighting the theoretical foundation of Marxist philosophy of praxis. In this sense, everyone is an artist; this is both a way to realize the aesthetic sensuous community and to manifest Morris's socialist ideals.

Boarding houses and bedsits are crucial to the life and literary career of Muriel Spark. Temporary accommodation has provided her with source material and space to write in. This article examines both Spark's life experience in boarding houses, bedsits and rented rooms and her literary representations of these spaces. Through reading Spark's work alongside Foucault's theory of heterotopia, it investigates the transitory, precarious but also potentially transgressive nature of the boarding environment. This article argues that Spark's fiction reveals Spark's treatment of the estrangement and oppression endured by social outcasts. It also notes that these alternative living spaces are shown to be potentially liberating, as they provide opportunities for vulnerable groups to claim agency, asserting control over their precarious lives.

In early Jewish American literature, numerous literature writings deal with issues of immigration and assimilation. The wave of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe has added different dimensions to these issues. "Home" is the core problem these issues share. Interpreting the assimilation narratives of early American Jewish writers from the perspective of space theory, it is possible to explore the sense of "at home" that material space speaks of, the sense of "uncanny" that generated by the discipline and fitting of spiritual space due to Americanized education; and the construction of a third space that shapes the ideal sense of "back home". The literary performance of the concept of "home" by the early American Jewish writers expresses the Jewish dream of a homeland to which they belonged and the Jewish desire to integrate without losing their independent selves.

In the history of Western traditional aesthetics and art criticism, landscape has been regarded as an object gazed upon or a textual system deciphered from the perspective of the opposition between the subject and the object, existing in a static state. Postmodernism has brought a new paradigm shift in research, transitioning landscape studies from focusing on formal visuality to the research paths of semiotics and hermeneutics. It views landscape as a dynamic, transitional construct, a process of cultural practice that directly participates in an ecological revolution and the formation of a complex network of cultural, national, and political identities. The decoding of landscape as a utility of multiple cultural symbols has also led to an interdisciplinary combination with literature. Literary interpretation based on landscape strengthens the mediating function of landscape, primarily representing the interaction among landscape, power, nostalgia, and identity.

Interpretive studies of the Psalms have frequently prioritized their literary aspects, often relegating the theological and philosophical dimensions to secondary importance. Concurrently, Martin Luther's theological insights and his exegesis of the Psalms have frequently been overlooked and marginalized. This paper aims to focus on Luther's interpretation of the Psalms, delving deeply into the profound philosophical and theological insights inherent in what he termed "Theology of the Cross." Furthermore, we will examine how contemporary thinkers such as Martin Heidegger and Karl Barth have exalted and revitalized Luther's "Theology of the Cross." This study will elucidate the significant value of Luther's interpretation of the Psalms and its important contribution to contemporary thought. It will also argue that Luther's ideas should not be confined narrowly to Reformation history but should be recognized for their relevance in the realm of contemporary cutting-edge thought.

Why today's urban experience and urban narrative could be traced back to Benjamin? If he is a precocious gambler who passed by a steel and glass building hundreds of years ago, and we are the modern individuals who later live in a complete illusion (phantasmagoria), then what we share with Benjamin is a variant of the same life at a different time. Walter Benjamin's theory of capital constructed a space-time structure, which not only contains the change of perception mode since modern times, but also reveals the psychological immanence of the modern appearance of the city. Benjamin's understanding of the new creation and ruins of the city has an irreplaceable theoretical role in how people read the city and how to construct the urban narrative.

In Truth and Method, Gadamer attempts to articulate the process of understanding as a less subjective event, but presupposes a certain subjectivity with his construction of a textual ethics. Such program of de-subjectivation in the notion of reading also has its malaise in its (post-)structuralist variants, especially the idea of self-deriving texts, which I will term as signifier fetishism and describe in its three modalities. Baudrillard's critique of notions of use value and need exemplifies that signifier fetishism ignores the productivity in the realization of use value. By adapting Paolo Virno's arguments on immaterial labor, reading activity can be considered as consumption with its productivity mostly beyond dominant capitalist productive relations. Referring to the notion of biopolitical production from Hardt and Negri, a tentative characterization of reading as production will convert the issue of hermeneutic subject into the one of becoming-subjectivity.

As Digital Humanities (DH) Teaching has increasing significance in the field of Chinese Studies, the three authors lectured in the course "Digital Humanities Methods of Literary and Cultural Research for Sinologists" at the University of Heidelberg. The course caters to students of both the Master in Transcultural Studies program of the Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS) and the "Continuing Education Program 'Digital Humanities'" program of the Heidelberg Center for Digital Humanities (HCDH). The course aims at preparing students of Chinese Studies with DH concepts, methods, and paradigms for their current and future research on materials and sources of Chinese. With a focus on literary and cultural analysis, the course consists of six modules covering topics of DH concepts, data management, distant reading, DH infrastructure, Computer-assisted translation, and critical reflection. This paper documents the design, practice, and challenges of teaching, wishing to offer first-hand experience and reflection to peers endeavor to such practice in international universities. Upon the three lecturers' teaching experience in the 22/23 winter semester and feedback from students, this paper reflects on the specific issues in integrating DH into the Chinese studies curriculums for overseas students, wishing to provide a practical reference for DH teaching not only in the field Chinese Studies but also in area studies and transcultural studies with a global scope.