For their final project for the “Introduction to Digital Humanities” graduate seminar in Spring 2019, Rebecca Rowe and Tolonda Henderson, both graduate students in English, collaborated on a project, Authorial Influence and Harry Potter Fan Fiction. Rowe and Henderson examine how J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels affect fan-fiction in the Harry Potter universe by text mining the seven Harry Potter novels and 450 fan fictions. Their project suggests more broadly the extent to which authors influence the amateur fiction written by fans, but also how fan fiction differs from the novels that inspire them.

---