We will investigate if some well known properties of log canonical singularities over the complex numbers still hold true over perfect fields of positive characteristic and over excellent rings with perfect residue fields. We will discuss both pathological behavior in characteristic p as well as some positive results for threefolds. We will see that the pathological behavior of these singularities in positive characteristic is closely linked to the failure of certain vanishing theorems in positive characteristic. Additionally, we will explore how these questions are related to the moduli theory of varieties of general type.

This is based on joint work with F. Bernasconi and Zs. Patakfalvi, as well as joint work with Q. Posva.