Ron Eglash

Fractals are characterized by the repetition of similar patterns at ever-diminishing scales. Fractal geometry has emerged as one of the most exciting frontiers on the border between mathematics and information technology and can be seen in many of the swirling patterns produced by computer graphics. It has become a new tool for modeling in biology, geology, and other natural sciences. Anthropologists have observed that the patterns produced in different cultures can be characterized by specific design themes. In Europe and America, we often see cities laid out in a grid pattern of straight streets and right-angle corners. In contrast, traditional African settlements tend to use fractal structures-circles of circles of circular dwellings, rectangular walls enclosing ever-smaller rectangles, and streets in which broad avenues branch down to tiny footpaths with striking geometric repetition. These indigenous fractals are not limited to architecture; their recursive patterns echo throughout many disparate African designs and knowledge systems. Drawing on interviews with African designers, artists, and scientists, Ron Eglash investigates fractals in African architecture, traditional hairstyling, textiles, sculpture, painting, carving, metalwork, religion, games, practical craft, quantitative techniques, and symbolic systems. He also examines the political and social implications of the existence of African fractal geometry. His book makes a unique contribution to the study of mathematics, African culture, anthropology, and computer simulations.

Modern Computing and Indigenous Design

African Fractals

Donna Harraway (1944-) taught women's studies and history of science at University of Hawaii and Johns Hopkins University and is a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the history of consciousness department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her works are widely read in feminist studies, science and technology studies, philosophy, and history of science, to name but a few disciplines. She received the Society for Social Studies of Science's Ludwig Fleck Prize in 1999 and their J. D. Bernal Award in 2000. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Haraway worked with two graduate students, Nathalie Magnan and Sarah Williams, to produce a film, "Donna Haraway Reads the National Geographic." In the film, she described one of the most fundamental forms of her research method (see ...

Ron Eglash

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