Participant Info

First Name
Katlyn
Last Name
Carter
Country
United States
State
IN Indiana
Affiliation
University of Notre Dame
Website URL
https://ndias.nd.edu/fellows/carter-katlyn/
Keywords
Eighteenth Century, Age of Revolutions, French Revolution, American Revolution, Political Culture, Political Thought, Early America, Democracy
Availability
Media Contact
Additional Contact Information
PhD
PhD

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

I am a political and intellectual historian of the eighteenth-century Atlantic World, specializing in the American and French Revolutions. My research focuses on the origins of modern representative democracy through the study of political practices and institutions.

Mu current book project, Houses of Glass: Secrecy, Transparency, and the Birth of Representative Democracy, is currently under contract with Yale University Press. In the book, I explore how decisions and debates about the place of secrecy in politics during the Age of Revolutions shaped representative democracy. I have published in French History and have a forthcoming article in the Journal of the Early Republic. Additionally, I have published numerous op-eds in The Washington Post, TIME, and the Age of Revolutions blog, for which I also serve as an editor.

My next book project, tentatively titled “Truth and Trust in the Age of Revolutions,” will provide a political history of truth in the late eighteenth-century through an examination of the institutions established to promote it, including the free press, political clubs and popular societies, and representative legislatures. By tracing how people thought and talked about truth and trust, my research will build a bottom-up intellectual history aimed at providing context to pressing questions in contemporary democracies, including how do we arrive at truth in a democracy and how do we determine who to trust in seeking it?

My research has been supported by fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, and the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, among other organizations. Prior to arriving at Notre Dame, I held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies at the University of Michigan.

I earned my Ph.D. in History from Princeton University in 2017 and I received a B.A. with high honors in history from the University of California, Berkeley in 2009. Prior to beginning my graduate study, I worked as a media relations consultant in Washington, DC. I am originally from Portland, Oregon.

Recent Publications
“The Senate looks away,” in The Washington Post (October 8, 2018).

“The Invention of Representative Democracy,” Age of Revolutions Blog (July 23, 2018). https://ageofrevolutions.com/2018/07/23/the-invention-of-representative-democracy/

“The Comités des Recherches: Procedural Secrecy and the Origins of Revolutionary Surveillance,” in French History, Vol. 32, No. 1 (March 3, 2018), pp. 45-65

“Secrecy in the Senate,” The Washington Post (December 12, 2017). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/12/12/the-case-for-secrecy-in-the-senate/?tid=ss_fb&utm_term=.d871e2c52cca

“Houses of Glass and Veils of Secrecy: Metaphor in Discourses of Political Publicity,” Journal of the History of Ideas Blog (October 16, 2017). https://jhiblog.org/2017/10/16/houses-of-glass-and-veils-of-secrecy-metaphor-in-discourses-of-political-publicity/

“The Enduring Suspicion of Secrets in American Politics,” Time Magazine/History News Network (November 7, 2016). http://time.com/4560709/suspicion-secrets-american-politics/

Media Coverage
Country Focus
United States, France
Expertise by Geography
Atlantic, France, United States
Expertise by Chronology
18th century
Expertise by Topic
American Revolution, American Founding Era, Government, Politics, Rebellion & Revolution