In the mid 1980's, it was discovered that the quark structure of complex
nuclei was significantly different from that of nucleons (``EMC
effect''). The origin of these effects is still a subject of much study,
both experimental and theoretical, and understanding the relation of
nuclear binding to the quark-gluon substructure of the nucleon is now an
important goal of nuclear physics. In addition, the use of the nuclear
medium as a short-distance quantum filter for high momentum transfer
hadronic reactions has become of great interest recently. The goal of these
studies is to establish properties of hard scattering processes using the
nucleus as a means of probing the time development of reaction participants
on short distance scales in the laboratory. Much of the recent and future
effort is focussed on the concept of ``color transparency,'' where one
expects the transparency of the nuclear medium to substantially increase at
high momentum transfer.