we are made of
cells & stories…
my first book, The Connector (Duke University Press 2026),
is now available for preorder!
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
out May 12, 2026
book launch and tour information coming soon
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