Meeting Time: Mondays and Wednesdays 2:00pm to 3:15pm at MS 5217
Office hours: Before class meetings, from 1:00pm (MW) at my office: MS6308.

Texts: Lecture notes will be posted: The first set of lecture notes:
Notes (pdf file, a tentative version now posted)

Homework Exam [pdf] due on June 3, 2009

As a reference book, we list
"Modular forms and Galois cohomology" (Cambridge studies in advanced mathematics 69).

Topics: I would touch the following topics in this course:

• Basics of group cohomology and extension functor;
• Duality theorems due to Tate;
• Selmer groups;
  
• Related topics will be touched upon in Math 290 student seminar on Fridays at 3:30pm (students are encouraged to attend).

Prerequisite:
Good understanding of commutative and non-commutative algebra, algebraic number theory. 

Homework.
I would assign exercises in the lecture notes as homework. The course grade is assigned by homework performance (if you want  A, you need to do a lot without much mistake); so, no final exam is planned. In any case,  homework is assigned to enhance your understanding of the material; so, I suggest you to do all for yourself.