Birational aspects of the geometry of M g

Abstract

We discuss topics on the geometry of the moduli space of curves. We present a short proof of the Harris-Mumford theorem on the Kodaira dimension of the moduli space which replaces the computations on the stack of admissible covers by a simple study of tautological Koszul bundles on Mg. We also present a streamlined self-contained account of Verra's recent work on the unirationality of Mg. Finally, we discuss a proof that the moduli space of curves of genus 22 is of general type. Written for Surveys in Differential Geometry.