Quandles and Monodromy
Abstract
We show that a variety of monodromy phenomena arising in geometric topology and algebraic geometry are most conveniently described in terms of homomorphisms from a(n augmented) knot quandle associated with the base to a suitable (augmented) quandle associated with the fiber. We consider the cases of the monodromy of a branched covering, braid monodromy and the monodromy of a Lefschetz fibration. The present paper is an expanded and corrected version of [1].