Baryon chiral perturbation theory A.D. 1994

In these lectures, the status of baryon chiral perturbation theory is reviewed. Particular emphasis is put on the two-flavor sector and the physics related to electromagnetic probes. I discuss in some detail the structure of the effective Lagrangian at next-to-leading order, the meaning of low-energy theorems in Compton scattering and pion photoproduction, and confront the chiral predictions with the existing data. Some remaining problems and challenges are outlined.Lectures given at the Indian-Summer School on Electron Scattering from Nucleons and Nuclei, Prague, Czech Republic, September 1994.First, I would like to thank the organizers for their kind invitation and hospitality. I am also grateful to Véronique Bernard and Norbert Kaiser for fruitful collaborations and allowing me to present some material before publication. I would like to thank Gerhard Ecker and Jürg Gasser for sharing with me their insight into the chiral dynamics.