Preface.- Topology of normal singularities and a criterion for simplicity.- The canononical ring of an algebraic surface.- Some aspects of the problem of moduli.- Two fundamental theorems on deformations of polarized varieties.- A remark on Mordell's conjecture.- Picard groups of moduli problems.- Abelian quotients of the Teichmuller modular group.

- Deformations and liftings of finite, commutative group schemes.- Bi-extentions of formal groups.- The irreducibility of the space of curves of given genus.- Varieties defined by quadratric equations, with an appendix by G. Kempf.- A remark on Mahler's compactness theorem.- Introduction to the theory of moduli.- An example of a unirational 3-fold which is not rational.

- A remark on the paper of M. Schlessinger.- Matsusaka's big theorem.- The self-intersection formula and the 'forumle-clef'.- Hilbert's fourteenth problem-the finite generation of subrings such as rings of invariants.- The projectivity of the moduli space of stable curves. I. Preliminaries on 'det' and 'Div'.

- An algebro-geometric construction of commuting operators and of solutions to the Toda lattice equation, Korteweg de Vries equation and related nonlinear equation.- The work of C.P. Ramanujam in algebraic geometry.- Some footnotes to the work of C.P. Ramanujam.- Fields medals.

IV. An instinct for the key idea.- The spectrum of difference operators and algebraic curves.- Proof of the convexity theorem.- Oscar Zariski: 1899-1986.- Foreward for non-mathematicians.- What can be computed in algebraic geometry.- In memoriam: George R.

Kempf 1944-2002.- Boundary points on modular varieties.- Further comments on boundary points.- Abstract theta functions.- Abstract theta functions over local fields.