Karen Exell is Honorary Senior Research Associate at UCL Qatar. She has over 15 years’ experience of museums and heritage, and has been teaching museum studies in Qatar for the past four years and advising on the development of regional museum projects. Prior to this she worked as a curator and lecturer in the UK. Karen’s research interests include the role and meaning of museums outside the West, and museums and the construction of knowledge.

"Overall, Exell portrays a broad and varied picture of the Arabian museum landscape: as people negotiate their relationship with modernity, some take a more global view, while others seek to highlight their own cultures and traditions. These processes happen simultaneously, which requires the observer to have a holistic vision of museums and cultural production in the region. Exell’s book provides us with the methodological and emotional tools to comprehend that vision."Sebastian Maisel, Grand Valley State University, USA

• Chapter 1: Introduction: Questions of Globalisation, Modernity and the Museum in the Arabian PeninsulaChapter 2: Building Nations in a Modern Middle EastChapter 3: Staging Identity in a Globalised WorldChapter 4: Universal Art Museums in the Arabian PeninsulaChapter 5: Knowledge Production in the Realm of CultureChapter 6: ‘We are not people of the city’: Narratives of Purity and ExclusionChapter 7: Oil, Conflict and Memory in the Arabian Peninsula: Private Collections and MuseumsChapter 8: ‘... [T]his shifting present which we call the future’

Karen Exell is Honorary Senior Research Associate at UCL Qatar. She has over 15 years’ experience of museums and heritage, and has been teaching museum studies in Qatar for the past four years and advising on the development of regional museum projects. Prior to this she worked as a curator and lecturer in the UK. Karen’s research interests include the role and meaning of museums outside the West, and museums and the construction of knowledge.

"Overall, Exell portrays a broad and varied picture of the Arabian museum landscape: as people negotiate their relationship with modernity, some take a more global view, while others seek to highlight their own cultures and traditions. These processes happen simultaneously, which requires the observer to have a holistic vision of museums and cultural production in the region. Exell’s book provides us with the methodological and emotional tools to comprehend that vision."Sebastian Maisel, Grand Valley State University, USA

• Chapter 1: Introduction: Questions of Globalisation, Modernity and the Museum in the Arabian PeninsulaChapter 2: Building Nations in a Modern Middle EastChapter 3: Staging Identity in a Globalised WorldChapter 4: Universal Art Museums in the Arabian PeninsulaChapter 5: Knowledge Production in the Realm of CultureChapter 6: ‘We are not people of the city’: Narratives of Purity and ExclusionChapter 7: Oil, Conflict and Memory in the Arabian Peninsula: Private Collections and MuseumsChapter 8: ‘... [T]his shifting present which we call the future’

Karen Exell is Honorary Senior Research Associate at UCL Qatar. She has over 15 years’ experience of museums and heritage, and has been teaching museum studies in Qatar for the past four years and advising on the development of regional museum projects. Prior to this she worked as a curator and lecturer in the UK. Karen’s research interests include the role and meaning of museums outside the West, and museums and the construction of knowledge.

"Overall, Exell portrays a broad and varied picture of the Arabian museum landscape: as people negotiate their relationship with modernity, some take a more global view, while others seek to highlight their own cultures and traditions. These processes happen simultaneously, which requires the observer to have a holistic vision of museums and cultural production in the region. Exell’s book provides us with the methodological and emotional tools to comprehend that vision."Sebastian Maisel, Grand Valley State University, USA

• Chapter 1: Introduction: Questions of Globalisation, Modernity and the Museum in the Arabian PeninsulaChapter 2: Building Nations in a Modern Middle EastChapter 3: Staging Identity in a Globalised WorldChapter 4: Universal Art Museums in the Arabian PeninsulaChapter 5: Knowledge Production in the Realm of CultureChapter 6: ‘We are not people of the city’: Narratives of Purity and ExclusionChapter 7: Oil, Conflict and Memory in the Arabian Peninsula: Private Collections and MuseumsChapter 8: ‘... [T]his shifting present which we call the future’