we are made of
cells & stories…
my first book, The Connector (Duke University Press 2026),
is now available!
Use code “E26MDTLN” to for 30% off your order
*those ordering from Europe and the UK can preorder from MNG University Presses using the same code
“In this beautifully written study, Middleton offers a vivid account of experimental limb replacement. An empathetic guide, she tacks expertly between a Swedish bioengineering lab and the quotidian, home-based lives of half a dozen extraordinary patients who have survived traumatically severe limb injury and loss. The Connector proffers a superb melding of ethnographic and STS skill, insight, compassion, and wisdom.”
- Lesley A. Sharp, Barbara C. And Helen C. Josefsberg ’30 Professor of Anthropology, Barnard College, Columbia University
book events
May 11, 2026 — Book launch @ University of Copenhagen
September 10, 2026 — Book reception @ European Association for the Study of Science & Technology | Krakow, Poland
November 18-22 — Book launch @ Duke Press stand, American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings (date and time TBD)
April 1 — Book talk @ Princeton University
welcome
I’m Alexandra Middleton, the Allie in limin(allie)ty.
anthropologist by vocation; writer by soul; photographer by heart; yoga & meditation guide by spirit; runner by nature
All of these parts and paradoxes —art & science, research & esoterism, praxis & poeisis—I weave into facilitating communities & practices that support people to create from/through/into the body.
I am an Assistant Professor of medical anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, and hold a PhD in anthropology from Princeton University. I am also a nonfiction essayist with words most recently in The Rumpus, Electric Literature and Off Assignment.
I am the founder & facilitator of WITHIN : a method, workshop series, and global community for somatic writing. My Substack newsletter, THE LIMINAL, celebrates the art (and mess) of living betwixt & between.
Above all else, I believe deeply in the power of human story—and that the most vital stories of our time live deep within our bodies.
[līmen] - a threshold
liminality is an anthropological concept describing an ambiguous threshold, neither here nor there.
it is also a space of creativity, possibility, and social change. previous ways of being dissolve as new ones emerge.
limin(allie)ty is a meeting place for connection and inquiry, relating to and with processes of unfolding, unfurling, becoming.
my writing, photographs, movement practices, workshops, and anthropological research all explore—and celebrate—this messiness:
the betwixt and between of being and becoming human.
words
research
-
medical anthropology
neuroprosthetics
feminist science & technology studies
embodiment
human-machine relations
disability studies / crip technoscience
assistive reproductive technology
sensory studies
ethnographic writing
learn more here -
current project: assisted reproduction, frontier technology, and cultures of (m)otherhood in Sweden and the US, funded by a Marie Curie Fellowship and the European Research Council
PhD project and forthcoming book: experimental neuroprosthetics and lived embodied science in Sweden
past work: indigenous medicine and global health in Togo, West Africa
learn more here
embodied writing
take a wander...
within — a method, workshop series, and global community for writing from, through, and into the body
n e w s l e t t e r
THE LIMINAL
subscribe to my newsletter on Substack,
about the art of living in the betwixt & between
@liminalliety