Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier (born 1934) is a French-born American

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

scholar whose research has included work on the art of the

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

and on the influence of

Pythagoras Pythagoras of Samos ( grc, Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, Pythagóras ho Sámios, Pythagoras the Samian, or simply ; in Ionian Greek; ) was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher and the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism. His politi ...

on art and philosophy into the Middle Ages and Renaissance. She is also known for bringing the first

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

against an American university for its discriminatory treatment of women faculty.

Education and career

Joost-Gaugier was born in 1934 in France. She graduated with honors from Radcliffe College in 1955, earned an A.M. there in 1959 and a PhD from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1973. She taught at Michigan State University in the early 1960s, and in the late 1960s joined the

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

faculty,. In 1970 she initiated a class action lawsuit against Tufts University for unequal treatment of women. The case was taken up by the

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that was established via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination ...

, eventually decided in her favor, settled in the mid-1980s, and became a significant legal precedent. However, as a consequence of her actions, Joost-Gaugier found herself "harassed and ostracized by her university" and "widely blackballed". She became a professor and department chair at the following universities: New Mexico State University, the University of New Mexico, and Wayne State University. Joost-Gaugier has lectured internationally and published widely including over 200 research articles. She is the recipient of many awards including a Fulbright Fellowship and grants from the American Society of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society, the Delmas Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Kress Foundation. She is responsible for obtaining a grant which commenced the restoration of Minoru Yamasaki's Courtyard in Detroit. Already a three times graduate of Harvard, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award with Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University in 2005. She now continues her work as an independent scholar.

Books

Joost-Gaugier's books include: *''Jacopo Bellini, Selected Drawings'' (1982) *''Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura: Meaning and Invention'' (2002) *''Measuring Heaven: Pythagoras and his Influence on Thought and Art in Antiquity and the Middle Ages'' (2006; translated into Italian, ''Pitagora e suo Influsso sul Pensiero e sul Arte'' 2008) *''Pythagoras and Renaissance Europe: Finding Heaven'' (2009) *''Italian Renaissance Art: Understanding its Meaning'' (2013) *''Islamic Elements in the Architecture of Puglia'' (2019)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Joost-Gaugier, Christiane Living people American art historians American women historians Women art historians Radcliffe College alumni Harvard University alumni Michigan State University faculty Tufts University faculty New Mexico State University faculty University of New Mexico faculty Wayne State University faculty Columbian College of Arts and Sciences faculty 1934 births