As a research interest group at the University of Oregon sponsored by the Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS), we study the vibrant traditions of alternative medicines, their histories, philosophies and cultures and investigate how they intersect with our actual society.

The wide-ranging methods of "Alternative Medicines" are based on different philosophies about the relations between nature, the human body and spirit. By infiltrating our society these methods transgress national, geographic and historical boundaries and have become a crucial part of our postmodern culture. People searching for alternatives to traditional Western medicine have accepted these different systems of thought and have put pressure on policy makers to integrate alternative methods into public healthcare and training of physicians.

Chinese medicine recently entered the academic discourse when the first professorship for traditional Chinese medicine was established in Germany at the famed Charite in Berlin. American insurance companies are considering covering homoeopathic therapies. These developments indicate how public policy is shaped by the desires of the public to break with the mathematically and rationally organized Western medicine and to integrate different diagnostic and therapeutic approaches into their lives. But pragmatic interests mostly outweigh the philosophical implications of these choices.

Our discussions and bibliographic research will investigate how alternative healing methods reinterpret the tensions between body, nature and spirit. We will approach our topic at least from several perspectives addressing "Healing as Total Art:"

We envision our research as preparation for organizing an interdisciplinary course for undergraduate students and an outreach lecture-and workshop-program for the general public in the near future. We will invite representatives of Eugene's alternative healing network to participate in our programs. Eugene's students and citizens have an extraordinary sense for nature and alternative healing strategies. As members of the University of Oregon's community we are committed to provide a forum for the discussion of the underlying philosophies and histories of these alternatives.