Offering: Intersession 2024 and Summer 2024

There are many perspectives to understanding the world, and academia provides a method for society to objectively build knowledge to answer the Big Questions. However, academic papers and textbooks are written by humans who have their own perspectives, biases and agendas; often, the behind the scenes story is even more interesting. While exploring an eclectic mix of fascinating topics with short modules from working academics from a range of fields, we will explore the history, philosophy, controversies and applications of the scholarly pursuit. In this course, students will experience an expanded view of the nature of evidence based practices, gain in-depth knowledge of contemporary research questions that scholars at McMaster University are exploring, and learn to become informed and critical consumers of information and media.