What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Forms of Utopia’ by Jenny C. Mann

In this ingenious and provocative book, Jenny Mann asks us to shift our understanding of utopia from its politics to its form. Beginning with Thomas More’s “Utopia” (1516), one of the most influential books of all time, Mann shows that utopia’s recursive patterns—its frames, folds, knots, meanders, and turns—enable the perpetual invention of limitless artificial worlds. Mann demonstrates how paradox…