Harry Potter and Participatory Culture

Harry Potter fan art from holytaco.com

We will finish our regular class meetings with a discussion of the increasing importance of participatory culture and the advent of online communities. As a point of departure we will look at the trans-media narrative of Harry Potter and consider its various extensions into fan narrative. As a reading assignment for this week try to read any fan ficiton from the Harry Potter universe. Also try to read some of the blog kept by Henry Jenkins one of the most important living critics of media and an important theorist about the growth of participatory culture. For example, read his recent post on Samba Schools and participatory culture. His blog his available at the following link:

http://www.henryjenkins.org/

Next week I will be meeting you indivdiually for your final evaluation conferences. Please remember to post on your blog any responses to works you have read this semester and, very importantly, for your final blog entry revise a previous post to represent your writing for this semester in one selected document. Be sure to complete the online course evaluation.