Yaron is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan. His areas of study all center around the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean, as he uses archaeology, old texts, and material culture to better understand ancient people and their lives. Over the years, he has written and edited numerous books, articles, and reviews on these topics – some of which have achieved national and international acclaim (you can read more about Yaron and his work here and here).
One of his great and abiding passions, however, is teaching, and over the past twenty years Yaron has devoted much energy to create an engaging classroom experience for the students in Ann Arbor. His history course, “The Land of Israel and Palestine through the Ages,” is one of the largest and most beloved humanities courses on campus (you can get a taste for this course by visiting its website here, and read how students feel about Yaron and his courses here).
It was within “The Land of Israel and Palestine” that Eliav – as his students like calling him – together with his graduate students, teaching and research assistants, as well as other colleagues, began exploring innovative ways to enhance the classroom experience (view a short video that the University prepared about his efforts here).
Chief among those innovations was a series of experiments with short video clips, meant to take students on virtual tours to various corners of the Mediterranean world (you can view those clips here).
In 2016, the University of Michigan awarded Yaron its largest grant ever given in the humanities – the Teaching and Learning of the Third Century grant, or in short, TLTC– providing him the resources to enhance the learning of the ancient world on the University campus. Paul in Athens is one of the fruits of this grant.