DPhil Anthropology
Blackfriars Hall
Simone’s doctoral research is on hormonal contraception and the significance of women’s fertility awareness. By ‘fertility awareness’, she means an interpretive grasp of the observable signs of the female ovulatory cycle. She is interested in the philosophical underpinnings of cultures of hormonal contraception, and how they implicate both scientific and common valuations of the ovulatory cycle. Her doctorate is a case study on this question focusing on Trinidad and Tobago, an English-speaking, twin-island republic in the southern Caribbean, where she is from. By extension, she is interested in the historical and scientific development of awareness-based methods of women’s fertility management vis a vis that of hormonal contraception. Her doctorate is founded on the irrevocable embeddedness of fertility in culture, and the ways in which each is manifested most potently in the other. She previously qualified in Medical Anthropology (MPhil., 2019) from the University of Oxford as well as Biology and Psychology (BSc., 2016) from the University of the West Indies. She studies at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar and a Hugh Springer scholar of All Souls College.
Email: simone.delzin@anthro.ox.ac.uk
