Kees Ribbens (1967) is endowed professor of Popular historical culture and War at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Ribbens studied Modern History at the University of Nijmegen. He obtained his PhD at Utrecht University in 2001 after defending his dissertation on popular historical consciousness in the Netherlands, 1945-2000. Ribbens worked as a researcher and lecturer at Utrecht University, Radboud University Nijmegen and Erasmus University Rotterdam. He was also managing editor of the journal Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis. Since 2006 he has been at NIOD, where he works as a senior researcher.
Popular historical culture and public history in the broadest sense of the term are among his key interests. His interest includes both the history of the Second World War and the memories and representations of war and mass violence in the twentieth and twenty-first century. He has published widely, for exampleExhibiting the war. The future of World War II Museums in the Netherlands (with Esther Captain, 2011);Oorlog op vijf continenten. Nieuwe Nederlanders & de geschiedenissen van de Tweede Wereldoorlog (War on five continents. New Dutchmen & the histories of World War II) (with Joep Schenk and Martijn Eickhoff, 2008); Nationale identiteit en meervoudig verleden (National identity and plural past) (with Maria Grever, 2007) and Bewogen jaren. Zwolle in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (Stirring years. Zwolle in World War II) (1995).
