| Louise Cowan | |
| Birth Name: | Mary Louise Shillingburg |
| Birth Date: | 22 December 1916 |
| Death Place: | Dallas, Texas, U.S. |
| Spouse: | Donald Cowan |
| Awards: | Frankel Prize (1991) |
Mary Louise Cowan (Shillingburg; December 22, 1916 – November 16, 2015) was an American critic and teacher, and wife of the physicist and University of Dallas president Donald Cowan (author of Unbinding Prometheus). She taught at Texas Christian University and Thomas More College of Liberal Arts. Cowan lived in Dallas, where she taught at both at the University of Dallas and the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture.[1] She was a prominent figure in Dallas society as a mentor and friend to many Dallas dignitaries and as one of the city's leading intellectuals.
Cowan was vastly influential in the fostering of the liberal arts, helping shape core curricula for several liberal arts universities. In studies of the American South, she was an influential critic of Faulkner, the Fugitive Group, and other Southern writers. A doctoral student of Donald Davidson at Vanderbilt University, she became a friend to members of the Southern Agrarians, and was considered to be the critical heir to their legacy. Her criticism has influenced many who continue to write about the South. In 1991, she was a recipient of the Frankel Prize. In 2010, she was named on a list of the twenty most brilliant living Christian professors.[2] She died November 16, 2015, of natural causes at the age of 98.[3]