Margaret M. McGowan is a noted dance historian and historian of early modern France

Early Modern France

Kingdom of France is the early modern period of French history from the end of the 15th century to the end of the 18th century...

. Her work is primarily focused on the late Renaissance and the fin-de-siècle

Fin de siècle

Fin de siècle is French for "end of the century". The term sometimes encompasses both the closing and onset of an era, as it was felt to be a period of degeneration, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning...

period at the end of the nineteenth century. She did her dissertation at the Warburg Institute

Warburg Institute

The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London in central London, England. A member of the School of Advanced Study, its focus is the study of the influence of classical antiquity on all aspects of European civilisation.-History:The Institute was founded by...

 of the University of London under the supervision of Frances Yates

Frances Yates

Dame Frances Amelia Yates DBE was a British historian. She taught at the Warburg Institute of the University of London for many years.She wrote extensively on the occult or Neoplatonic philosophies of the Renaissance...

, published subsequently as L'art du Ballet de Cour en France, 1581–1643. In addition to nearly a dozen books she has published over eighty articles and book chapters.

McGowan is one of the first scholars to focus on the history of dance in the early modern period

Early modern period

In history, the early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages. Although the chronological limits of the period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after the late portion of the Middle Ages through the beginning of the Age of Revolutions...

 and served as Assistant Editor for the journal Dance Research

Dance Research

Dance Research is a twice-yearly academic journal founded in 1982. It is published by Edinburgh University Press on behalf of the Society for Dance Research in Spring and Autumn each year. Each issue contains articles, as well as book reviews and review essays....

 for several decades, helping to shape the field of early dance.

Publications

• L'art du Ballet de Cour en France, 1581–1643. Paris, 1963.
• Les fêtes de cour en Savoie: L'Oeuvre de Philippe d'Aglié. Société de l'Histoire de Théâtre, 1970.
• Montaigne's Deceits. London, 1974.
• L'entrée de Henri II à Rouen, 1550. Amsterdam, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1974.
• Balet Comique de la Reyne
  Ballet Comique de la Reine
  The Ballet Comique de la Reine was a court entertainment, now considered to be the first ballet de cour. It was staged in Paris, France, in 1581 for the court of Catherine de' Medici. It was produced and choreographed by Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx and danced by Queen Louise and the women of the court...
  
  , 1581. Medieval and Renaissance Texts, Binghamton, 1982.
• Form and Meaning: Aesthetic Coherence in Seventeenth-century French Drama, ed. with Ian D. McFarlane. Avebury, 1982.
• Ideal Forms in the Age of Ronsard. California University Press, 1985.
• Moy qui me voy: the Writer and the Self from Montaigne to Leiris, ed. with G. Craig. Oxford University Press, 1989.
• The Court Ballet of Louis XIII. London, Victoria & Albert Museum, 1989.
• The Vision of Rome in the French Renaissance. Yale University Press, 2000.
• Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion: French Obsession. Yale University Press, 2008.

Further reading

• The Art that all Arts do Approve: Manifestations of the Dance Impulse in High Renaissance Culture: Studies in Honour of Margaret M. McGowan -- Dance Research, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Winter 2007)