1998 Moursund Lectures at the University of Oregon

Abstract

These informal notes are closely based on a series of eight lectures given by J.-P. Serre at the University of Oregon in October 1998. Professor Serre gave two talks per week for four weeks. The first talk each week was concerned with constructing embeddings of finite groups, especially $\PSL_2(p)$ and $\PGL_2(p)$, into Lie groups. The second talk each week was about generalizations of the notion of complete reducibility in group theory, especially in positive characteristic. The notes are divided into two parts, one for each of the topics of the lecture series. At the end of the notes, there is a short list of references as a guide to further reading.