These notes are the contents of a course of lectures given
by the second author at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences,
Chennai. The aim of the course is probably best described by
the following ‘blurb’ which accompanied the announcement of
this course:
The course will begin with axioms for a TQFT, then go
through the Turaev-Viro prescription for constructing such a
TQFT, and finally work through Ocneanu’s method of starting
with a ‘finite depth hyperfinite subfactor’ and obtaining the kind
of data needed to invoke the Turaev-Viro machine.
An attempt will be made to make this as self-contained as
possible. In particular, no background on subfactors will be as￾sumed; the idea will be to develop the necessary facts from the
theory of subfactors as and when they are needed.