Gil Bittner Archives - Public Seminar

On the institutional amnesia that enables universities to treat artworks as fungible assets

June 16, 2026 • by Gil Bittner

Art has always been treated as an investment. The Italian Renaissance was bankrolled by patrons wishing to glorify God—and their own families and administrations. Today, blue-chip art buyers park their assets in storage lockers in tax-friendly free ports, openly treating art as capital rather than culture. Yet it feels different ...

Literature

Did You Raise Something Monstrous?

In Night Night Fawn, Jordy Rosenberg turns a mother’s opioid-fueled narration into a study of gender, nationalism, and ideological inheritance

April 21, 2026 • by Gil Bittner

Jordy Rosenberg’s new novel, Night Night Fawn (One World, 2026), is narrated by Barbara Rosenberg, a dying Manhattan mother delivering a torrent of OxyContin-fueled recollections about her life and her estranged trans child, who now goes by “J.” The names are not subtle. Rosenberg’s second novel is a radical form ...