Yale University’s newest magazine launched its first issue in August, focusing on the concept of space and time with creative writing on the subject of science.

Maria Korolik

September 28, 2022 at 11:41 PM

staff reporter

Jordan Davidson, Contributing Photographer

While taking NSCI 160: The Human Brain last semester, Sarah Feng ’25 discovered her passion for finding connections between science and art by taking data from the real world and extrapolating it to fiction. Found pouring.

Fenn didn’t find enough opportunities to explore his interests at Yale University, so he used Trumbull College’s Creative and Performing Arts (CPA) award to publish Cortex, a non-traditional science and arts publication. Created a collective magazine. This August, the magazine published its first issue, “Great Reversal.”

Feng, now Cortex Editor-in-Chief, said:

Feng’s interest in science fiction began with reading speculative fiction in high school. She cites The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian novel set in her England in a totalitarian, patriarchal near-future New England, as one of her first interests in her work. I was.

She emphasized the “philosophically interesting” act of taking a real-world phenomenon and twisting it into a fictional yet plausible narrative. Feng created her Cortex Collective, giving her a space at Yale University to experiment with just that with non-traditional style publications.

First issue of publication represents a collection of artifacts and documents created by the team in a world with two contrasting planets, one of Light and one of Darkness. Written by the Cortex team, the work delves into philosophical and metaphorical arguments while building a world entirely grounded in the exploration of scientific principles.

“There is perfect symmetry in science and perfect asymmetry in writing,” says Feng.

The worlds of science and humanities may often seem different, but the Cortex editorial team strives to bridge the gap between the two. Cortex’s chief fiction editor, Jordan Davidson ’25, explains that one cannot exist without the other. For science to make a difference, it must be properly communicated through the humanities, but the humanities must be rooted in the real world.

Cortex editors bring together students passionate about both the humanities and sciences to explore the many connections between the two, and to present these bonds to others in a creative and non-traditional style. We would like to make a location at Yale University.

Feng says it’s not too difficult to combine scientific research and creative writing. Both rely on problem-solving journeys while not knowing their true destination. Taking classes and understanding both ways of thinking is key to success in any field, according to Feng.

“If you’re not doing science for people, what are you doing it for?” Davidson asked about Cortex’s mission to combine STEM and the humanities.

One of the main goals of the Cortex team is to make publications more than a written experience. The editor wants to hold an art installation her performance based on her work this semester.

In the future, Cortex strives to serve as an experimental space for both written and unwritten media. This semester, as we spend more time working on the next issue than we did on the first issue last semester, we will continue to explore unconventional publishing structures and expand our scope further by examining ideas of time, light and space in our work. We want to expand.

“Our strength lies in our background,” says Hannah Szabo ’25, Lead Nonfiction Editor at Cortex. “Most of us are double majors in the humanities and her STEM, and that really impacts how we view these bodies of knowledge as dialogues.”

Feng, Davidson, and Szabo explained how Cortex fosters strong community ties between editors and contributors who explore different passions. Feng said one of her favorite parts of her job as editor-in-chief at Cortex is “finding connections between members with very different backgrounds” and connecting them.

Cortex has also leveraged previous and next issues’ work to submit nominations for awards such as the Best of the Net Prize and Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. The inaugural issue of this publication will be published in print and will be distributed in various university boarding libraries in the near future. Before that, the print version will be available at his two-week launch party.

Their next issue will build on the theme of rewriting fairy tales, reworking well-known and more niche stories to delve deeper into their meaning.