Rethinking Spring in a Small Town through the temporality of neurasthenia

Bibliographic Data

ID19480286
AuthorsHui Li (0000-0001-9355-1116, King's College London, corresponding author)
Year2026
Pages1-17
Publication date2026-05-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Chinese Cinemas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1750-8061 • E-ISSN: 1750-807X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17508061.2026.2673295
OpenAlexW7162027473
LanguageEN
References cited11

This article reinterprets Spring in a Small Town through the lens of neurasthenia, a once-prevalent but now largely forgotten diagnostic category in modern China. It argues that neurasthenia should not be understood merely as a thematic element or medical condition within the film, but as a historically specific discourse that structures its narrative, interpersonal relations, and cinematic form. By reconstructing the medical and cultural context of neurasthenia and offering a re-diagnosis of the protagonist Dai Liyan, the article shows how illness reorganizes affective expression and social relations. More importantly, it shows that neurasthenia embodies a temporal paradox: as both a product of modernity and a sign of weakness, it disrupts the linear temporal logic through which modernity promises recovery and progress. This disrupted temporality is central not only to the film’s narrative structure but also to its historical reception. The rejection of Spring in a Small Town by leftist critics is thus understood not simply in ideological terms, but as a response to a form of temporal experience that resists a progressive vision of history. In recovering this forgotten discourse, the article contributes to broader debates in health humanities and film studies on the relationship between illness, temporality, and modernity

Atmospherics · Neurasthenia · Temporality · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Spatial and Cultural Studies

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