We are saddened to share that longtime faculty member Victor Valentine Magagna, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science – who dedicated himself to teaching thousands of students over the course of three decades at UC San Diego – passed away Aug. 3, 2022. He was 67, a few days shy of his 68th birthday.
Magagna is best remembered as a beloved educator. From 1990, when he started at UC San Diego, up until his death, more than 50,000 students enrolled in his courses. His classes were popular and the waitlists long. Students and colleagues alike report being impressed with his deep and wide-ranging knowledge and his ability to deliver complex lectures from memory, following his own handwritten outlines to a T, without ever having to look back at his notes.
A testament to his mastery of teaching are the six teaching awards he received at UC San Diego. Five of these six awards are drawn from student nominations: the Muir College Teaching Award, the Greek Teaching Award, the Marshall Teaching Award, the ERC Teaching Award and the Warren Teaching Award. He was also the recipient of 2002 Distinguished Teaching Award from the Academic Senate, to which he was nominated by his home department, but which also came with exuberant student endorsements.
Magagna’s research examined the cultural foundations of politics in pre-modern and early modern societies as diverse as 19th-century Spain, Tokugawa Japan and Mayan civilization. His book, “Communities of Grain: Rural Rebellion in Comparative Perspective,” found the sources of peasant rebellion not in class conflict, but in the structure of rural communities. Most recently, he was working on understanding social radicalism in democratic politics, as well as domestic politics in the ancient world.
Born Aug. 11, 1954, he earned his bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Washington in 1976 and his doctorate in comparative politics at UC Berkeley in 1985. Magagna came to UC San Diego after teaching at UC Riverside from 1984 to 1990.
He loved collecting toy soldiers and collecting books – all of which he also read. He also loved languages and baseball.
Magagna is survived by his daughter, Blythe Urutia, of Portland, Oregon.
The Department of Political Science is planning a campus celebration of Magagna’s life for the fall; please check on the department website for updates.
