Fundamental groups, Alexander invariants, and cohomology jumping loci

We survey the cohomology jumping loci and the Alexander-type invariants associated to a space, or to its fundamental group. Though most of the material is expository, we provide new examples and applications, which in turn raise several questions and conjectures. The jump loci of a space X come in two basic flavors: the characteristic varieties, or, the support loci for homology with coefficients in rank 1 local systems, and the resonance varieties, or, the support loci for the homology of the cochain complexes arising from multiplication by degree 1 classes in the cohomology ring of X. The geometry of these varieties is intimately related to the formality, (quasi-) projectivity, and homological finiteness properties of \pi_1(X). We illustrate this approach with various applications to the study of hyperplane arrangements, Milnor fibrations, 3-manifolds, and right-angled Artin groups.