Michael Carter

• Ph.D., University of Southern California, 2006

Dr. Michael S. Carter is an associate professor in the Department of History, and an affiliated faculty member teaching and advising in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies' doctorate-granting programs. His major expertise, published research, and other intellectual contributions, which he has been invited to present internationally, focus on the role of religion (particularly intellectual history, and print/material culture) in colonial/early America and the early modern Atlantic World, as well as the history of anti-Catholicism in British imperial, American colonial, and U.S. history.

His current research project focuses on the role of anti-Catholic historical narratives and political ideologies in the Revolutionary-era United States. Dr. Carter is past chair of the University of Dayton’s Forum on the Catholic Intellectual Tradition Today, which administers the Marianist Award, presented annually since 1950. He is a recipient of the Faculty Member of the Year Award from the UD Panhellenic-Interfraternity Council.

Dr. Carter is an associate editor of the peer-reviewed academic journal U.S. Catholic Historian (Catholic University of America Press, Washington, DC). He is currently serving in a canonical role as an “historical expert” for the Cause of Canonization of Servant of God Fr. Vincent R. Capodanno, M.M., by appointment of Archbishop Timothy Broglio. He frequently contributes to broadcast radio and print media, as well as to television documentaries. Dr. Carter was an editorial consultant and on-camera expert for the documentary Urban Trinity: the Story of Catholic Philadelphia, from Emmy Award-nominated filmmakers History Making Productions, which aired on 6-ABC Action News during the visit of Pope Francis to the United States in September 2015.

Dr. Carter has held research and/or residential research and writing fellowships from the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, the American Philosophical Society, the American Antiquarian Society, the Pew Foundation, The Huntington Library, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York City/New York Public Library in Manhattan. He was one of the founding editors of the journal of Catholic literature, poetry and art Dappled Things, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary of print circulation.

• Roman Catholicism
• Early Modern Atlantic World
• Colonial British America
• American Religious History
• Religious material culture

Carter, Michael S., “Religious Freedom, Catholic Citizenship, and the First U.S. State Constitutions, 1776-1796” in U.S. Catholic Historian, Volume 41, Number 4 (Fall 2023), pp. 1-25.

Carter, Michael S., "A 'Traiterous Religion': Indulgences and the Anti-Catholic Imagination in Eighteenth-Century New England." The Catholic Historical Review, vol. 99 no. 1, 2013, p. 52-77.

Carter, Michael S. "'Under the Benign Sun of Toleration': Mathew Carey, the Douai Bible, and Catholic Print Culture, 1789–1791." Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Fall 2007), p. 437-469.

Carter, Michael S., “Puritan Life” (book chapter) in British Colonial America: People and Perspectives (ABC-Clio Publishing, 2008).

Presenter, American Origins Seminar, USC-Henry E. Huntington Library Institute (San Marino, California).

Presenter, Cushwa Center Working Papers Seminar, University of Notre Dame (South Bend, Indiana).

Keynote lecture, American Catholic Medical Association Annual Meeting (Philadelphia).

Presenter, McNeil Center for Early American Studies Seminar, University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).

Daughters of American Colonists Annual Endowed Lecture, Wilmington College (Wilmington, Ohio).

Presenter, “Anti-Catholicism in a Comparative and Trans-National Perspective, 1750–2000” (funded by a grant from the Bank of Sweden; Farfa, Italy).