Casting “Difference”: Visual Anxiety and the New York Fashion Industry

Stephanie Sadre-Orafai
Stephanie Sadre-Orafai is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research focuses on the production of difference and types among expert communities in the United States. Her ethnographic work examines media and cultural producers, emerging forms of expertise, the intersection of race, language, and visual practices in aesthetic industries, and forms of evidence and the body. She co-directs the Critical Visions Certificate Program, a joint effort between faculty in the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning and College of Arts and Sciences, which she established with Jordan Tate in 2011. The program is aimed at teaching students how to effectively combine critical theory and social analysis with art, media, and design practice. She co-edits CVSN, the experimental publication of student work from the program.
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Co-Director of the Critical Visions Certificate Program
University of Cincinnati
Race and visual culture, media and cultural producers, expertise and type production, aesthetic industries and practices, art and design, practice-based social theory, the United States