A review of some of the progress made in the study of nuclei at finite temperature and rotational frequency with the giant dipole resonance is here presented. The focus is the study of the low temperature region in connection with two different problems. The first is that of the shape and damping mechanisms of the GDR as deduced from radiative fusion among heavy ion symmetric reactions. The second is the effect of the GDR decay in the population of the superdeformed structures. Some perspectives for future works with radioactive beams will be also discussed.

PACS numbers: 21.10.Re, 23.20.Lv, 24.80.+y, 27.10.+q