Alexandra Kleeman is a novelist and associate professor of Literatures in English at Cornell University. At the Academy, she is working on “The Taxon Cycle,” a quasi-utopian novel written in five parts, about monetary systems on the brink of collapse and transition. Set on different islands at different times—a Micronesian island, Okinawa, Manhattan, Fårö, and a futuristic space colony—each section explores a distinct society in a moment of economic flux.