Identity

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Kelsey McKeon

The publishers of Brain, Child explore the highs and lows with literary flair Jennifer Niesslein and Stephanie Wilkinson might never have met. They didn't grow up in the same area, go to the same undergraduate or graduate schools, and they don't even live in the same town now. But they are allies in ways that perhaps only women can be.

Iris Magazine and the U.Va. Women's Center teamed up to host "Navigating The Real World" a lunch seminar geared towards offering tips and advice on landing that first job out of college and pursuing a successful career path.

What does it mean to be black at U.Va? This the kind of question that immediately raises concern, that provokes thoughts, and that spawns long necessary-yet-draining discussions about race. The problem with this question, or at least one of the problems, is that it assumes that there is one black identity, one black experience. This is not at all black-specific; the same issues rise when we question what it means to be a woman here, to be gay here, to be African here, to be a graduate student here, to be an athlete here...

You think of your job and you think of all the other people you know doing more interesting things with their lives. You feel guilty about griping when you know plenty of capable friends who are still unemployed. It could've been you.

LINGERR: I went home, I conquered home, and then I came back... home. I think figuring out what home means is difficult; difficult because it changes frequently and completely, and is entirely dependent on what I'm categorizing as where I live. Is your home: 1. Where you live now?: in which case, my home is Charlottesville. I miss it when I'm gone, I'm comfortable when I'm here. But surely that isn't enough? Is your home: 2. Where you grew up: so my homes would be California, and The Gambia.

I define myself by where I'm from. Well... that's not true.

We live in an age of social media. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn…if you can connect to it, we’re on it. How do we make sense of the undeniable lure of these virtual communication avenues—is it our modern day society? Is it something internally motivated, maybe a fear of being alone? Perhaps it is a combination of both? And furthermore, what does this inescapable intermingling of communication, social media, and the virtual world mean for society’s vision of gender?