Confession: I like Harry Potter. (*Gasp!*) I am also very interested in the global phenomenon of Harry—everything from the books, to movies, video games, and fan fic novels, and fan art . . . this exemplifies a bleed between media forms that is more pervasive than perhaps anything before. Is this how a struggling writer, J.K. Rowling, has managed to become the first billionaire author . . . ever?
I would like to do my project on one of the many fan websites devoted to all things HP, The Leaky Cauldron. I will examine how the information it presents and the feedback from fans posted on this site play out many of the ideas we’ve read about and discussed in class . . . hypertext, the Memex (especially the user’s in-putting ability), global village, text design and purpose, blogging, Wiki technology, and incorporation of new new media (AJAX, new programming skills that allow for faster and easier user interfaces), etc.
There's been some fascinating critical work done on HP fan fiction that you might look at. And you might think about what in particular draws you to this site -- what's the particular question you have about the site that will motivate your analysis? I'll look forward to seeing where this takes you...
Nice nice nice! Just reading the title of your proposal I was kind of (aka really) skeptical about this idea, but once I actually read the paragraph I think you're dead on. This is so relevant to what we're talking about in class but it's got a cool different spin: people are taking an extant, traditional, text and then linking and studying everything about it so that its world sort of expands beyond the book and becomes this participatory, nodal, thing not under the control of a single author presence. Bring in the Fanfictions and you've got something really interesting.