The integrated light of stellar populations: challenges and opportunities

Mark Norris (Preston)

In this talk I will discuss the formation of early type galaxies, from the smallest compact ellipticals to the largest cD galaxies. I will describe recent breakthroughs in the spectroscopic measurement of the stellar populations of such galaxies that allow us to probe not just their star formation histories, but also their assembly histories. I will also point to some of the problems that are limiting our ability to make further progress in the study of the integrated light of galaxies.