The Link Week Drop, Week 34, 2025.
XX: Your Alternative (intervention) to the Social Media Feed.
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This week on The Link Drop,
By Michael Vazquez and Michael Prinzing.
I’ve been saying it for years, I really believe that every university degree should have some component of philosophy threaded into it, no matter the discipline!
60-year-old man turns to ChatGPT for diet tips, ends up with a rare 19th-century illness.
In The Economic Times.
With so many people going to AI for information, this is perhaps a much-needed reminder to check the information you are given.
Palaeontologists verify Australia's largest fossil pearl as 100 million years old.
By Maddie Nixon.
A fossil pearl found in outback Queensland has been verified as 100 million years old, making it the largest and highest quality of its kind verified in Australia. The specimen was discovered at a site that was once part of the Eromanga Sea, which can help scientists understand how fauna responded to climate change.

JSTOR Readings This Week
Markley, A. A ‘‘Laughing That I May Not Weep’: Mary Shelley’s Short Fiction and Her Novels.’ Keats-Shelley Journal 46 (1997): 97–124.
Analyses Mary Shelley’s short stories ‘The Mortal Immortal’ and ‘Transformation’, arguing that they are playful and often comic reworkings of the serious themes and character types found in her novels.
Springhall, John. ‘‘Pernicious Reading’? ‘The Penny Dreadful’ as Scapegoat for Late-Victorian Juvenile Crime.’ Victorian Periodicals Review 27, no. 4 (1994): 326–49.
Part of some research for an article I’m putting together. This article examines the Victorian-era ‘penny dreadfuls’ and the moral panic surrounding them.
Carroll, Noël. ‘Horror and Humor.’ The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57, no. 2 (1999): 145–60.
This article argues that horror and humour are closely related because both often rely on the transgression of categories, norms, or expectations. The key difference is the presence of fear.

What I Enjoyed On Substack This Week.
Interdisciplinary Deep Reads: Using 1 Classic Novel to Self-Study Multiple Humanities.
By
For those who vowed in January to read and do a deep dive into War and Peace, but find it’s almost September and the book is still on the shelf untouched. Ahem… Some great resources listed.
On the importance of ‘Short Assignments’ for dissertation writing.
By
While I eagerly (—impatiently) go through the querying process, I am keeping my brain busy (—distracted) writing a scholarly article that I hope to submit early in the new year. Although this article is nowhere near the length or depth of a dissertation, the ideas here were helpful.
Thanks for reading the Link Drop this week. I hope you found something to interest you, whether that be on your lunch break, your commute, or just before bed.
C M Reid at The Link Drop.





