Jeffrey Hart
Jeffrey Peter Hart (February 23, 1930 – February 16, 2019) was an American cultural critic, essayist, columnist, and Professor Emeritus of English at Dartmouth College.
For the professor of political science, see Jeffrey A. Hart.
Jeffrey Hart
Life and career[edit]
Hart was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. After two years as an undergraduate at Dartmouth, he transferred to Columbia University, where he joined the Philolexian Society and obtained his B.A. (1952) and PhD, both in English literature.[1][2]
During the Korean War he served in U.S. Naval Intelligence in Boston.[1][3]
After a short period teaching at Columbia, Hart became Professor of English literature at Dartmouth for three decades (1963–1993). Hart specialized in 18th century literature but also had a fondness for modernist literature. His political contrarianism annoyed his faculty colleagues; when they were concerned about fossil fuels he made it a point to commute to campus in a Cadillac limousine.[4][5][6]
In 1962 he joined William F. Buckley's conservative journal National Review as a book reviewer, requiring a trip from Hanover, New Hampshire to New York City every other week.[5] Later, he would contribute as a writer and senior editor for the better part of the ensuing three decades, even as he fulfilled his teaching responsibilities as a professor at Dartmouth.[7]
Hart took a leave of absence from Dartmouth in 1968 to work for the abortive presidential campaign of Governor of California Ronald Reagan. This role led him to briefly serve as a White House speechwriter for Richard Nixon.[5] After nomination by his former student Reggie Williams, Hart was honored with his college's Outstanding Teaching Award in 1992. He also received the Young America's Foundation Engalitcheff Prize in 1996, among other academic accolades. In 1998, he served as a visiting lecturer at Nichols College.[5]
The Dartmouth Review was founded in his living room in 1980, and he served as an adviser to it until his death.[3] He wrote a regular column for King Features Syndicate[5] and retired from teaching.
He launched a Burkean critique of the policies of President George W. Bush in the pages of the American Conservative, the Washington Monthly, and The Wall Street Journal. Hart supported John Kerry in the 2004 election and Barack Obama in 2008.[3][8][9]
He died on February 16, 2019, at age 88.[10][11]