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akademiskacademic quarterkvarterTransgression and TabooJens KirkThe maintenance of that difference between taboo and transgressionis a necessary condition for the success of the website. First ofall, Rowling’s promise to furnish a “safe” 5 experience for the readerof fan fiction presupposes a hierarchy of taboo and transgression,author and fan. Secondly, her separate identity as the author of herwork is important for guaranteeing the site as the exclusive placewhere Potter audio and e-books are sold. 6 Lastly, maintaining thefundamental distinction between author and fan underwrites thevalue of the collaborative expansions of her fictional universe. Incontrast to the participatory endeavours by her fans, the supplementaryinformation emanating from Rowling is particularly importantbecause it increases the parameters and borders of theknown Potter universe authoritativelyConclusion: The Fan Is in the TextThe notions of transgression and taboo suggest that fans, on theone hand, and authors and media producers, on the other, cannotbe conceptualised monolithically as transgression and taboo. Rather,both categories manifest an awareness of and a dependency onthe other. Fans violate the boundaries of their favourite fictionalworlds by creating fan fiction, for instance, but they do so out of asense of loyalty to that universe. This loyalty to specific characters,events, and places gives them their identity of fans in the firstplace. Conversely, authors and media producers, who lay downthe law and incarnate the taboo as the inventors and originators offictional characters, events, and places, achieve their identities bymaking room for and taking into account fan practices that mayviolate the very borders they set up. Few writers have done whatRowling is doing with her new web site, of course. Instead, themajority of writers, in fact, rely on their work to do just that. Texts,in creating fictional worlds with boundaries, provoke transgressionand make room for fannish production. To qualify as a sourcetext, in fact, a text has to be producerly in this way according toJohn Fiske. Source texts “(…) have to be open, to contain gaps, irresolutions,contradictions, which both allow and invite fan productivity”(1992: 42. Emphases mine). Fiske is suggesting thatsource texts are particular kinds of speech acts that not only mapout the boundaries of fictional universes but also request and facilitatetheir violation through inciting audience participation. ToVolume03 156