These lecture notes are based on the joint work of the author and Arthur Fischer on Teichmiiller theory undertaken in the years 1980-1986. Since then many of our colleagues have encouraged us to publish our approach to the subject in a concise format, easily accessible to a broad mathematical audience. However, it was the invitation by the faculty of the ETH Ziirich to deliver the ETH N achdiplom-Vorlesungen on this material which provided the opportunity for the author to develop our research papers into a format suitable for mathematicians with a modest background in differential geometry....
These lecture notes are based on the joint work of the author and Arthur Fischer on Teichmiiller theory undertaken in the years 1980-1986. Since then ...