Dr Andrew Moeller

Project Director, Biotechnology and the Humanities

Faculty of History/Medical Humanities Research Hub

andrew.moeller@history.ox.ac.uk

My current historical research focuses broadly on the history of human enhancement, with a particular interest in the history of eugenic thought and practices in Britain. Those topics, along with the intersecting histories of Christianity, pronatalism, and neo-Malthusianism in the twentieth century, are examined in my forthcoming monograph with Rutgers Press, entitled Be Fruitful and Multiply: Eugenics and other Anglican Efforts to Control Fertility in Interwar England.

I have taught on the Authority of Nature course for undergraduates, and I previously worked on an interdisciplinary bioethics and human enhancement project called the "Boundaries of Humanity". My role was that of researcher in ethics and the humanities for the Stanford-based project.

I also lead a project called "Biotechnology and the Humanities", which draws and builds upon scholarship in the humanities, such as history, philosophy, theology, and ethics, to better understand biotechnologies and their relationship with human society, and to foster interdisciplinary and open discussion of emerging biotechnologies.

Research Interests

Modern British History
Religious History
Intellectual History
History of Science, Medicine, and Technology

Featured Publication

“Eugenics and the Approval of Birth Control at the 1930 Lambeth Conference” in The Journal of Ecclesiastical History (2024) Vol. 75 No. 1 pp. 96-115

Following the vote in favour of birth control at the 1930 Lambeth Conference, the Church of England became the first major Christian denomination explicitly to condone the use of birth control. This paper argues that the bishop of Winchester, Theodore Woods, was the previously unheralded principal actor responsible for reversing the position of the Church. Woods was convinced that the Church needed to ‘modernise' its position in order to secure a receptive audience for its higher-ordered teachings on marriage, sex and especially procreation.

Research Centres

museumofhistoricalscienceoxfordbyianwallman 273

Oxford Centre for History of Science, Medicine, and Technology

Period Modern

Region British Isles & Ireland North America

Specialism History of Science, Medicine & Technology Intellectual History Religious History