we prove asymptotic stability of shear flows close to the planar, periodic couette flow in the 2d incompressible euler equations. that is, given an initial perturbation of the couette flow small in a suitable regularity class, specifically gevrey space of class smaller than 2, the velocity converges strongly in l2 to a shear flow which is also close to the couette flow. the vorticity is asymptotically mixed to small scales by an almost linear evolution and in general enstrophy is lost in the weak limit. joint work with nader masmoudi. the strong convergence of the velocity field is sometimes referred to as inviscid damping, due to the relationship with landau damping in the vlasov equations. recent work with nader masmoudi and clement mouhot on landau damping may also be discussed.