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Since centuries non-human creatures were imaginative lieux (in the meaning given by Pierre Nora) in which many processes intersect. They were excuse for the reflection over human and world „nature”, but also an imaginative hyper-Other. In 19th century figures such as vampires and werewolves migrated from folclore to the mainstream of Western culture and gave birth to the whole new Narrations. Also, the new Monster Narration was born to reflect the fear and fascination caused by the development of modern science. Narrations were used to define borders: to self-define society, culture and their constitutive norms, and define the „outside” abject (term invented by Julia Kristeva) Other. Those borders had racial, class, gender and sexual dimensions, and such notions as „nature” and „natural” (as well as, on the contrary, „progress” and „civilisation”) were used to strenghten them. The traditional hierarchy rooted in religion was supported by the modern (white, masculine) science, and this compounded gender and racial relations, as well as the hierarchy of beings (animals and humans, with white males on the top). One was not allowed to cross the borders in any direction: neither „up” or „down”; any trangression of one’s race, class, gender or human „nature”, given at the moment of birth, was unacceptable and punishable, both in imaginative narrations and in real life. However, many changes occured in the last century and nowadays we witness transgender, transsexual and even transhuman tendencies. From one side we are more likely to accord „personhood” to the „nature” creatures and to erase the borders between animals and humans, as postulated Donna Haraway. On the other hand, we explore the new possibilities of artificial creatures and artificial body body parts. All those changes are reflected in new Imaginative Narrations, who mirror the social attitutudes as well as form them.
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