Any assignment of meaning to earthly existence and to notions of worldly and otherworldly salvation rests on that deepest and most fundamental uncertainty of our human existence: the awareness of our mortality. How do literature and the arts help us cope with this knowledge of death?

The exploration of such figurations (Greek: morphómata) of death, in all their national and cultural diversity, is one of the core areas of inquiry at the Morphomata Center for Advanced Studies of the University of Cologne, supported by an international and interdisciplinary selection of Fellows.

In keeping with the main focus of Morphomata, the presentations by scholars from Germany and India would concentrate on case studies in contemporary literature and art which have tended not only to expand but also to transcend the realm of experience, to represent the unrepresentable, to advance into areas beyond all rational analysis, beyond the borderline at which philosophical or scientific explanations may fail.