The course will cover a number of fundamental topics in the emerging field of soft materials, including polymer mechanics and physics, linear poroelasticity, linear viscoelasticity, and introduce several frontier research topics. The basic mechanical and thermodynamic principles underlying soft materials will be elucidated with lectures, recitations and demonstrations. Through the course, the students are expected to grasp the basicknowledge about the non-linear large-deformation behaviors and classic physical/phenomenologicalconstitutive models of soft materials, and get to know about several research frontiers,such as mechanical robustness, adhesion, fracture, and fatigue, of soft materials.