Bringing together perspectives from aesthetics, art history, law, literature and theatre studies, the CAS (Center for Advanced Studies) Research Focus addresses questions of cultural goods and art, in its ever-changing transformations. Tackling issues such as the significant complication of the fact that "art" refuses uncomplicated fitting into the mass of cultural goods and its associated dynamics whilst concurrently striving to insert these topics within a wide-ranging approach.

It is in this framework, that on March 19, 2020, Jonas Bens presented a paper titled “Die Sentimentalisierung von Menschen und Dingen: Die Zerstörung der Mausoleen von Timbuktu vor dem Internationalen Strafgerichtshof”. He provided an analysis of international legal perspectives on war crimes against humans and non-humans. The paper was later published as the chapter „Ikonoklasmus vor Gericht: Die Mausoleen von Timbuktu als geschändete Körper“ in the book Körper-Kränkungen: Der menschliche Leib als Medium der Herabsetzung (Campus Verlag, 2021).