Black holes in the centers of galaxies

The massive black holes found at the centers of most nearby galaxies, including our
own, are believed to be the ashes of the fuel that powered quasars early in the history of the universe. I will review the observational evidence for these objects and describe some of the exotic dynamical phenomena that originate in their vicinity, including hypervelocity stars, resonant relaxation, phase transitions, and lopsided stellar disks.