Eleanor Courtemanche
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ecourtem.bsky.social
Eleanor Courtemanche
@ecourtem.bsky.social
4.9K followers 3.4K following 3.9K posts
Midwestern prof: Victorian lit & financial crisis. Zeitgeist-seismometer. 75% normcore

Anti-doomer but ☹️☹️ wtf
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ecourtem.bsky.social
Look at all the new books in Victorian studies @navsa2025.bsky.social & this isn’t even all of them!

Note @pfyfe.bsky.social pointing to @mmvty.bsky.social ’s clever book cover, and the “cut out a sticker of a book cover” craft activity 😄
Poster of books Book stickers
November 15, 2025 at 1:58 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
What’s great is a nice paper program that is NOT on an app 😊
Program for a Victorian studies conference on the theme “Aftermaths”
November 14, 2025 at 1:33 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Washington DC is very evil but
Glowing autumnal sunset over Rock Creek Park. Somehow looks like a blessed land and not at all spiritually cursed. Yes that is kudzu
November 13, 2025 at 1:19 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
I’m at the conference about Victorian literature
I’m at the conference about national security law in honor of Judge William H. Webster, former head of the FBI and Director of Central Intelligence
I’m at the combination etc.
35 ANNUAL REVIEW OF THE FIELD OF NATIONAL SECURITY LAW CLE CONFERENCE Technology, National Security and the Law: Keeping Pace with Innovation This year's conference is dedicated to the memory of Judge William H. Webster, former FBI Director, Directer of Central tateligence and Counselor to the Standing Committee on Law and National Security fer 34 years, whose unwavering commitment to justice and national security has left an enduring legacy. SPONSORED BY: ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security COSPONSORED BY: American University Washington College of Law George Mason University Astesia Scal Law Scool. National Security Institute orge Wishngtoe Usiversity Law School New York University School of Law, Reist Center o a Law and Security Syracuse University, festitute for Security Policy roTecas at Aestin School of Li, Willam & Mary Law School THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13 & FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2025 OMNI SHOREHAM HOTEL, WEST PROMANADE
November 13, 2025 at 1:07 AM
ecourtem.bsky.social
O’Hare has a quiet lounge hidden above the G concourse
O’Hare concourse G below, lounge hidden upstairs. Overhead is the Rotunda skylight Dawn in the “yoga room” lounge where they once had a herb garden growing under artificial lights
November 12, 2025 at 1:15 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Don’t read this screenshot if you don’t want to know
Grimes • @Grimezsz • 13h He unfollowed me too lol. 9... I don't think we shud pile on tho - that's how u make villains. Let's not make powerful enemies. He's invested a lot in the community, I think we all just wanna see this manifest in a more prosocial way and if we're defending the pope we shud be forgiveness oriented
November 10, 2025 at 1:58 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Enjoying the last week (probably) of these bright bright colors 🍂
Picture of pink and red flowers that survived near-frost conditions against a backdrop of red and yellow autumn leaves
November 4, 2025 at 3:37 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Time is determined by the railroads, so it will continue to exist as long as railroads do
A plaque next to the CBOT building in downtown Chicago Where the Central Time zone was declared THE STANDARD TIME SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES ADOPTED ON THIS SITE-OCTOBER 11,1883 Chicago's famous Grand Pacific Hotel; then on the site of the present Continental Bank building, was the location of the General Time Convention of 1883 wich, on October fl of that year, adopted the current Ständärd Time System In the United States. The Convention was called by the nation's rai roads. Delegates were asked to develop a better and more uniform time system to govern railroad operations. Previousiy, time had been determined by the position of the sun, with high noon as the only existing standard of exact local time: More than 100 diferent local times resuited from this method. The new plan, proposed by Willam F. Allen, Convention Secretary, established four equal time zones across the country, each one hour ahead of the zone to its west. All railroad clocks in each zone were to be synchronized to strike the hour simultaneously. The Standard Time System was Inaugurated on November 18, 1883. On that Sunday, knownas the Day of Two Noons," the Allecheny Observatory at the University of Pittsburgh transmitted a telegranh signal when it was exactly noon on the 90th meridian. Rallroad clocks throughout the United States were then reset on the hour according to time zone. Although implemented by the railroads, the Federal Government, states, and cities began to use the system almost immediately. On March 19, 1918, Congress formally acknowledged the plan by passing the Standard Time Act. THIS PLAQUE PRESENTED TO CONTINENTAL BANK THE MIDWEST RAILWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC. November 18, 1971
November 2, 2025 at 3:35 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Medium-sized local protest outside the Urbana, IL courthouse: gotta keep it up 🏃‍♀️
Sign that says “No Golden Ballroom for the Mad King” Urbana, IL protest run by the Champaign Urbana Resistance Effort. Talks by a veteran, an attorney, a public health leader, an immigration activist, and a Methodist church leader. Not a giant protest but a very well-organized one
November 1, 2025 at 6:41 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
I wish you all a very sunny autumn coffeeshop
A suburban coffeeshop in Champaign IL with basic decor but lots of bright sunlight and unobstructed views, for a satisfying balance of “nesting” and “perching”
October 30, 2025 at 4:58 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Kyla Scanlon is an acute observer of the “casino economy”: wealth at the top, brittle risk for everyone else. K-shaped economy as inequality increases (and young people stop eating at Chipotle). Here, ideas about “slow” institutions that could resist some of the dangers
That's why the economy feels both booming and brittle at once: we have extraordinary wealth concentration coupled with mass participation in markets. Wealthy households and large firms transfer risk through diversification, hedging, political insulation (like donating to a ballroom maybe). Everyone else absorbs risk through gig work, debt, market exposure, and health costs. It is the logical outcome of labor precarity + 401 (k)ification + income volatility. Risk always rolls downhill, but lately it looks like belief too. The fixes for some of this aren't complicated (it's ideas that many have been talking about for a long time). Create portable benefit pools that follow workers between gigs. Build a public infrastructure corps that provides an employment floor. We have examples as to what works, like Singapore's sovereign wealth model, Germany's apprenticeship programs, and Denmark's flexicurity svstem.
October 30, 2025 at 2:57 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Thinking humbly of other human generations who’ve had to struggle against darkness by using reason and working as honestly as they can 😔
Fat paperback of Darwin’s Descent of Man (1871), a kind of a messy book full of amazing ideas
October 28, 2025 at 4:04 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Oh Instagram, never change 😂
We reviewed your report and found that keanureeves32443597 does not go against our Community Standards. 5h
October 27, 2025 at 3:54 AM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Reminder of this load-bearing skeet
Patrick Cosmos @veryimportant.... • 1mo working on a new unified theory of american reality i'm calling "everyone is twelve now" Patrick Cosmos Follow @veryimportant.lawyer "I'm strong and I want to have like fifty kids and a farm" of course you do. You're twelve. "I don't want to eat vegetables I think steak and French fries is the only meal" hell yeah homie you're twelve. "Maybe if there's crime we should just send the army" bless your heart my twelve year old buddy September 7, 2025 at 7:51 PM
October 26, 2025 at 3:06 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
CU has its Pride Parade in the fall to harness all the college student energy 🌈
Behold: “Pink Pony Squirrel”
A bus decal that combines the iconography of an autumn squirrel with a nut, the Chappel Roan song Pink Pony Club, and the movable feast of Queer Pride in what could potentially be the syncretic creation of a new symbolic regime
October 25, 2025 at 6:42 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
It’s always amazing when ✨this✨ happens
Pale blue sky visible through red maple leaves, the round tree lit up like a globe by the setting sun Red maple leaves contrasted at sunset with the bright clear, but gradually darkening, blue sky behind them
October 20, 2025 at 11:02 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Good for you, Kenny Loggins!!
Variety post on FB: Kenny Loggins slams Donald Trump for using "Danger Zone" in an Al video where Trump bombs No Kings protestors with feces: "I request that my recording on this video is removed immediately." "I can't imagine why anybody would want their music used or associated with something created with the sole purpose of dividing us. Too many people are trying to tear us apart, and we need to find new ways to come together. We're all Americans, and we're all patriotic. There is no 'us and them' — that's not who we are, nor is it what we should be. It's all of us. We're in this together, and it is my hope that we can embrace music as a way of celebrating and uniting each and every one of us."
October 20, 2025 at 6:00 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
My warning whistle from Chicago organizers
Chicago whistle kit with whistle, instructions, card with legal advice
October 19, 2025 at 10:19 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
This is an episode of Lupin!
Netflix show Lupin, about a dashing French thief
October 19, 2025 at 12:57 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Freeport, Maine #nokings
Sign that reads “Free Balls for Members of Congress who Lost Theirs” and is decorated with several colorful pom-poms
October 18, 2025 at 3:09 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Chicago trip goal unlocked: I got a Whistle Kit, which is being given out to community watch groups in Chicago 🥺
One small red whistle, one set of whistle instructions, one printed card with instructions for legal aid— thousands of these kits have been given out
October 18, 2025 at 2:44 AM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Here’s another angle: it completely creates space around it
Elegant red Calder sculpture — official name “Flamingo” at the corner of Dearborn & Adams in Chicago
October 17, 2025 at 11:11 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Yes, the Rookery is a Burnham and Root building that was then glammed up by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1905. Here’s one of his glam ✨ marble-covered pillars that’s been dismantled to show the original iron column beneath
Picture of an original iron column with one side of the glam 1905 marble cladding taken away
October 17, 2025 at 11:00 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Tomorrow is Chicago Open House! There’s a cool new CBOT museum
New free museum at Chicago Board of Trade Building
October 17, 2025 at 10:40 PM
ecourtem.bsky.social
Recovering on the Willis Tower public terrace, the perfect spot to end my Hellhole Chicago Photo Thread 😄
Willis Tower terrace, looking oddly Scandinavian. It’s a modernist city! Find the little airplane Pleasing mix of early 20c urban and early 21c natural aesthetics Picture of a bustling city that is completely not burning 🥰
October 17, 2025 at 10:32 PM