This book proposes a new general setting for theories of bodies with microstructure when they are described within the scheme of the con-
tinuum: besides the usual fields of classical thermomechanics (displacement, stress, temperature, etc.) some new fields enter the picture
(order parameters, microstress, etc.). The book can be used in a semester course for students who have already followed lectures on
the classical theory of continua and is intended as an introduction to special topics: materials with voids, liquid crystals, meromorphic con-
tinua. In fact, the content is essentially that of a series of lectures given in 1986 at the Scuola Estiva di Fisica Matematica in Ravello
(Italy).