She was a chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres (2020), a winner of the Wolfson History Prize (2009), a member of the British Academy and an emerita research professor at the University of Sussex.

For example, her book Ideal Forms in the Age of Ronsard (1985), situated French literature in the political and moral climate.

McGowan's coverage of the rivalries between poetry and art was extensive but critiqued for its nonlinearity, making it difficult to see how Ronsard's career was affected by it.

[5] In 2008, McGowan's Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession was published and garnered the 2009 Wolfson History Prize.

[6] This extended her thesis with the latest discoveries in French dance history, juxtaposing the courtly Valois performance art with contemporaneous popular genres.

For instance, her assessment of Catherine de' Medici as only a dance enthusiast had been subsequently overturned by other scholars who now view her as a prime mover of ballet.

[7] Other reviewers pointed out inaccuracies in her rendition of historic names, misunderstandings of source texts, particularly from the Italian, and inaccurate generalisations on the evolution of dance styles.

The book was appreciated for its detailed connections between intellectual happenings and the creations of choreographers and performers as portrayed at the time.