American Studies 

Credit gained: 1 High School Credit

Prerequisites

None.

Course description

This is an introductory level course in American History whose purpose is to examine the political, social, cultural, military, and economic aspects of the United States through the important events and people that helped shape the nation. The study will commence with the U.S. as a country in its infancy and walk through its various stages/phases as it rose to the status of regional power 100 years after its formation, went on to become a global power less than 100 years later, eventually emerging victorious from the Cold War as the sole superpower in a unipolar world system before encountering it in the present/current multipolar environment. Special references will be made to globalization, terrorism, the 9/11 events, and the wars Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition, the course will deal with such questions as: what is history, who makes it, and how should we interpret it?

Course Start/End Date:

  • Fall 2022: Starting week of October 3rd, 2022 to week of January 23rd, 2023
  • Winter 2023: Starting week of Feb. 13th, 2023 to week of May 29th, 2023
Course Duration: 15 weeks

Fellow/Online Instructor: Leonidas Gontzes

Cost: 600 Euros

Fellow/Online Instructor(s)

Gontzes, Leonidas, Fellow

Leonidas (Leo) Gontzes is a historian and a political analyst born in New Jersey and raised both in the U.S. and Athens, Greece. Mr. Gontzes has a Bachelor's degree in History from Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia, USA), and two graduate degrees in European History from University College Cork (Cork, Republic of Ireland) and Diplomacy, with an international conflict management concentration, from Norwich University (Northfield, Vermont, USA). He has been teaching History, Government and Politics, and International Relations at several international institutions in the Greek capital and abroad since 1999 at secondary school level as well as on the graduate and undergraduate levels. He has taught at New York College since 2001 and at Empire State College (State University of New York) since 2007. Moreover, he held the office of Associate Dean heading New York College's International Relations Department from 2008 to 2018. His responsibilities have also included the office of Academic Director of Graduate Studies at the New York College Educational Group in Athens, Greece, for a total of ten years (2006-2016).

His papers include: "Re-Examining the 1925 Bulgarian Incident", "To what extent has the United States used the international economic system in order to exert power in global politics?", 'Evaluating peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peace enforcement in Kosovo", "Security and Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Kosovo", "Organizing and conducting a future military intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina". He has co-authored articles for CNN Greece on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and Eastern Europe and has appeared several times on Greek and Arab television, as well as Radio France International, as a political analyst vis-à- vis U.S. and Greek political developments.

e-mail: gontzesl@acs.gr