DAVID A. TITUS

David A. Titus, professor emeritus of government, died June 13, 2006. He was 71.

After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Harvard, he received master’s and doctoral degrees from Columbia. He served in the U.S. Naval Reserve and joined the Wesleyan faculty in 1966 as a lecturer in government, specializing in East Asian studies and comparative politics.

Prior to his retirement in 2004, he had served as chair of the government department, the College of Social Studies, and the East Asian Studies Program. He played a crucial role in establishing East Asian Studies at Wesleyan and was the resident director of the Kyoto Program three times. His doctoral dissertation, published as Palace and Politics in Prewar Japan, established his reputation as a leading scholar of Japanese politics; it was translated into Japanese in 1979.

Calling it a benchmark in the field, Professor of East Asian Studies William Johnston says, “It is impossible to mention the relationship between the Japanese emperor and politics in Japan before 1945 without referencing this work. In addition to penning this classic, David translated significant works of Japanese scholarship into English. During his career at Wesleyan, he also read and suggested changes to a large number of book manuscripts on Japanese political science and history, probably as many as 40 or 50.”

Professor of Government Richard Boyd concurs: “The overriding continuity of his connection to Wesleyan was his abiding dedication to his students in government, the CSS, and East Asian Studies. I doubt he ever turned down a student’s request that he direct a senior honors thesis, with the result that he carried huge thesis advising loads for almost five decades. Once he forgot to include an enrollment ceiling on his introductory class in comparative politics, and about 180 students enrolled. He accepted the challenge, taught them well, and graded all of the papers,”

Remembering him fondly as “the irreverent iconoclast, marching in the opposite direction of whatever trend majority opinion in the world or at Wesleyan seemed to be taking,” and noting that his entire professional career was at Wesleyan, Boyd calls Titus one “who define[d] a university experience for a generation of students and a collegial life for fellow faculty members.”

An avid birder and naturalist, Titus was a founder and president of the Mattabeseck Audubon Society. He enlivened numerous campus occasions over the years with his violin playing. Survivors include two sons, a daughter-in-law, two grandchildren, and a brother and sister.