Readings

The following table lists suggested readings.

Topics READINGS
The Grassmannian: An Example of a Moduli Space Buy at Amazon Griffiths and Harris. Principles of Algebraic Geometry. New York, NY: Wiley, 1994, c1978, pp. 193-211. ISBN: 0471050598.

Buy at Amazon Fulton. Intersection Theory. Berlin, Germany; New York, NY: Springer, c1998, chapter 14. ISBN: 354062046X.

Buy at Amazon Harris. Algebraic Geometry: A First Course. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, 1992, lectures 6 and 16. ISBN: 0387977163.

Vakil, R. A Geometric Littlewood - Richardson Rule. (PDF)

The following is a very pleasant survey article:

Kleiman, S. L., and Dan Laksov. "Schubert Calculus." American Mathematical Monthly 79 (1972): 1061-1082.
The Moduli Space of Curves You can find a sketch of the G.I.T. construction in: Buy at Amazon Harris and Morrison. Moduli of Curves. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, chapter 4. ISBN: 0387984291.

For the construction of the Hilbert scheme look at:
- Mumford. Lectures on Curves on an Algebraic Surface. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966.
- Sernesi. Topics on Families of projective schemes. Kingston, ON: Queen's University, 1986.
- Grothendieck's original lectures given in the Seminaire Bourbaki.
Grothendieck, Alexander. Techniques de construction et théorèmes d'existence en géométrie algébrique. IV. Les schémas de Hilbert. (French) (Construction techniques and existence theorems in algebraic geometry. IV. Hilbert schemes). Séminaire Bourbaki. Vol. 6, Exp. No. 221, 249-276.

For a very detailed treatment of G.I.T. look at: Buy at Amazon Mumford. Geometric Invariant Theory. Berlin, Germany; New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, 1994. ISBN: 3540569634 (Berlin), and Buy at Amazon 0387569634 (New York). (There are newer editions with appendices by Fogarty and Kirwan.)

For a detailed proof of the Potential Stability Theorem see: Buy at Amazon Gieseker. Lectures on Moduli of Curves. Berlin, Germany; New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, 1982. ISBN: 0387119531. (U.S.)

A good account of the G.I.T. construction is contained in: Mumford, D. "Stability of projective varieties." Enseignement Math 23, no. 2 (1977): 39-110.
The Cohomology of the Moduli Space of Curves A great source is: Harer, J. "The cohomology of the moduli space of curves, in Theory of Moduli." Lectures given at C.I.M.E. Springer Lecture Notes in Mathematics. Vol. 1337. Springer Verlag, Berlin, 1988.

Check out this paper by Hain and Looijenga, it contains a survey of the stuff we have been talking about. (PS)

Arbarello, E., and M. Cornalba. "Combinatorial and algebro-geometric cohomology classes on the moduli spaces of curves." J Alg Geom 5 (1996): 705-749.

———. "Calculating cohomology groups of moduli spaces of curves via algebraic geometry." Mathématiques de l'IHÉS 88 (1998): 97-127. (PDF)

———. "The Picard Groups of the Moduli Spaces of Curves." In Topology. Vol. 26, 1987, pp. 153-171.
The Moduli Space of Curves is of General Type The following papers of Joe (with Mumford and Eisenbud) developed the theory:

Harris, J., and D. Mumford. "On the Kodaira dimension of the moduli space of curves." Invent Math 67, no. 1 (1982): 23-86. (With an appendix by William Fulton.)

Harris, J. "On the Kodaira dimension of the moduli space of curves II: The even-genus case." Invent Math 75, no. 3 (1984): 437-466.

Eisenbud, D., and J. Harris. "The Kodaira dimension of the moduli space of curves of genus." Invent Math 90, no. 2 (1987): 359-387.
The Kontsevich Moduli Space of Stable Maps Fulton and Pandharipande have a great article. This is probably the best introduction to the subject.

Fulton and Pandharipande. "Notes on stable maps and quantum cohomology." 1996.

Other papers of interest are:

Pandharipande, Rahul. "Intersections of Q-Divisors on Kontsevich's Moduli Space $\bar{M}_{0,n}(P^r,d)$ and Enumerative Geometry." 1995.

Vakil, Ravi. "The enumerative geometry of rational and elliptic curves in projective space." J Reine Angew Math 529 (2000): 101-153. (Crelle's journal.) (PDF)