Ron Eglash "African Influences in Cybernetics" In The Cyborg Handbook; edited by Chris Hables Gray, Heidi Figueroa-Sarriera, and Steven Mentor; New York: Routledge, 1995 (pp. 17-28) In this essay, Ron Eglash displays the fundamental presence of 'African' and African-American concepts in the field of cybernetics. This political affirmation of 'black cybernetics' and remapping of histories of technology overlays another debate between analog and digital media. In this context, Eglash emphasizes the complete dichotomy between the physical dynamics, feedback, proportionality, hysteresis, and resonance of the former from the code tables, grammar, syntax, and symbolic logic of the latter. While noting the prominent differences between analog and digital systems, Eglash is careful to denote their functional equivalence. By associating 'African' with analog, Eglash is able to argue that fractal organizations of Saharan cities, Songay Villages, hairstyles from Cameroon, the beats of rap, and the scratching of Digital Underground act as important contributions to cybernetic discourse. This essay is an attempt to underscore the diversity within these histories, to suggest political reconfigurations, and to pose 'possible cybernetic origins within African culture.' L.E. Fazen