  We give a brief overview of the string landscape and techniques used to
construct string compactifications. We then explain how this motivates the
notion of the swampland and review a number of conjectures that attempt to
characterize theories in the swampland. We also compare holography in the
context of superstrings with the similar, but much simpler case of topological
string theory. For topological strings, there is a direct definition of
topological gravity based on a sum over a "quantum gravitational foam." In this
context, holography is the statement of an identification between a gravity and
gauge theory, both of which are defined independently of one another. This
points to a missing corner in string dualities which suggests the search for a
direct definition of quantum theory of gravity rather than relying on its
strongly coupled holographic dual as an adequate substitute (Based on TASI 2017
lectures given by C. Vafa).
