These are significantly expanded lecture notes for the author’s minicourse at MSRI in June 2012. In these notes, following, we give an examplemotivated review of the deformation theory of associative algebras in terms of the Hochschild cochain complex as well as quantization of Poisson structures, and Kontsevich’s formality theorem in the smooth setting. We then discuss quantization and deformation via CalabiYau algebras and potentials. Examples discussed include Weyl algebras, enveloping algebras of Lie algebras, symplectic reflection algebras, quasihomogeneous isolated hypersurface singularities (including du Val singularities), and Calabi-Yau algebras.

The exercises are a great place to learn the material more detail. There are detailed solutions provided, which the reader is encouraged to consult if stuck. There are some starred (parts of) exercises which are quite difficult, so the reader can feel free to skip these (or just glance at them).

There are a lot of remarks, not all of which are essential; so many of them can be skipped on a first reading.