Hugo Keesing collection on popular music and culture

Hugo Arnold Keesing is a popular culture scholar and a former professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is particularly known for his expertise on popular music and the Vietnam War. Keesing was born in the Netherlands in 1943 and moved to the United States when he was seven years old. An avid collector, Keesing's interest in popular music began when he started collecting records in the mid-1950s.

From 1970 to 1971, after earning degrees from Duke University and George Washington University, Keesing taught psychology courses for the University of Maryland to U.S. military personnel and their dependents stationed in Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Thailand. He then taught courses for the University in various European countries, and became the head of the University's European Division Office in 1974. During this time, Keesing was also conducting the research that would culminate in his doctoral dissertation, "Youth in Transition: A Content Analysis of Two Decades of Popular Music." He received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Adelphi University in 1972.

In the mid-1970s, Keesing returned to the United States and began teaching a course entitled "Popular Music in American Society" at the University of Maryland in College Park. This course sought to interest students in contemporary history through topical music. As a result of this course and others he taught for the University, Keesing amassed large collections of teaching and research materials related to popular music and other aspects of popular culture, with a particular strength in Vietnam War-era materials. These materials ranged from music records and radio recordings to reference books, popular books, and realia. Keesing taught at the University of Maryland until the mid-1990s. He also worked for the graduate school program of the Defense Intelligence Agency from 1980 until 2006.

In 1996, Keesing began a partnership with Special Collections in Performing Arts at the University of Maryland, eventually donating large portions of his popular music and culture collections to the University, as well as collections amassed by his brother, Wouter Keesing.

Keesing is currently active as a lecturer, writer, and consultant. In 2010, he curated the 13-CD boxed set Next Stop is Vietnam: The War on record, 1961-2008 and wrote the accompanying book. His most recently published project was the 4-CD boxed set Battleground Korea: Songs and Sounds of America's Forgotten War, released in 2018 with the accompanying book.