The purpose of this talk is to give a very elementary introduction to the problem of classifying surfaces of general type. I will particularly discuss the case when the surfaces are defined over an algebraically closed field of characteristic p>0, the pathologies that appear in this case in comparison to the characteristic zero case and possible ways to deal with them. The talk will be accessible to a general mathematical audience.
Links:
[1] http://www.mpim-bonn.mpg.de/de/taxonomy/term/39
[2] http://www.mpim-bonn.mpg.de/de/node/3444
[3] http://www.mpim-bonn.mpg.de/de/node/158