Joseph Slaughter's research and teaching focuses on how religious movements and businesses shaped the emergence of capitalism in early America. His current book project, Faith in Markets: Christian Capitalism in the Early Republic (Columbia University Press), demonstrates how people's religious identities shape their economic decisions. His work also explores the intersection of war and religion, as well as the emergence of American evangelicalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, explaining its transformation into a politically influential and controversial community in the late twentieth century. 

Before coming to Wesleyan, Slaughter taught world and early American history at the U.S. Naval Academy. He earned his PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park in December 2017. Prior to his doctoral studies, he served in the U.S. Navy as a C-2 Greyhound pilot on the USS Harry S. Truman and a catapult and arresting gear officer on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.