Jean Baudrillard A Very Short Introduction

Jean Baudrillard
A Very Short Introduction by Doug Mann

Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) was a French philosopher and cultural analyst who started his academic life as a Marxist sociologist interested in consumer society (he completed his Ph.D. thesis in 1966). He concluded that what was formerly a society of production had now (after World War II) become one of consumption.

Becoming slowly dissatisfied with Marxism, he went on to incorporate structuralism and semiology into his analysis, seeing the objects we consume as a system of signs that had to be decoded, this system being embedded in structures of consumption and leisure that he felt could be analysed sociologically. He laid out his semiotic analysis of consumer society in his books The System of Objects (1968), The Consumer Society (1970), andThe Mirror of Production (1975). His most important earlier work is For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign (1972), in which he rejected Marxism as the only valid way of analysing consumer society.

Marx said that objects all have a "use value": for example, a hammer is useful for hammering nails into a board. But under capitalism, all objects are reduced to their "exchange value," their value or price in the marketplace (the hammer might cost $10 in the local hardware store). Baudrillard said, so far, so good; but he added that, at least in advanced capitalist counties, consumer goods also have a sign exchange value: they are signs of distinction, taste, and social status. A BMW or a gold watch can certainly have both use and exchange value (we can drive the BMW to work, or sell the watch to a used jewellery dealer); but, says Baudrillard, we also have to understand their status as signs in the code of consumer values - they signify social distinction. As you drive your BMW down the main street, you're saying to the unwashed masses "I'm no longer one of you - I'm distinct, a member of the wealthy and discriminating classes." It's the BMW's symbolic value, it's cachet, that makes it so irresistible to these classes.Lastly, Baudrillard imagined a utopian realm where we all engage in symbolic exchange, where the gifts we give cease to be consumer objects with exchange or sign values, becoming instead symbols of friendship, love, or community.

In the 1980s and 90s, Baudrillard turned away in a large degree from Marxism and structuralism to post-structuralism. He became the high priest of postmodern culture, turning toward an extreme version of McLuhan's communications theory - he was fascinated by how media affect our perception of reality and the world. He concluded that in the postmodern media-laden condition, we experience something called "the death of the real": we live our lives in the realm of hyperreality, connecting more and more deeply to things like television sitcoms, music videos, virtual reality games, or Disneyland, things that merely simulate reality.

Early in this new phase of his work, Baudrillard reflected on love. In his book On Seduction (1980), he claims that there are two modes of love. The seductive female mode, which is artificial and symbolic, involves flirtations, double entendres, sly looks, whispered promises, but a putting off of the actual sexual act. It involves the manipulation of signs like makeup, fashion, and titillating gestures to achieve control over a symbolic order. On the other side is the male sexual mode, centered on the phallus, which is direct and natural, seeking to master a real order - to complete the sexual act. On top of each of these modes is now layered the "cool" seduction of media images pumped out by television, radio and film.

He continues this theme of cool seduction in his book The Ecstasy of Communication (1988 in translation). Here Baudrillard discusses how we surrender ourselves in an "ecstasy of communication," to the seductive power of the mass media - television, ads, films, magazines, and newspapers (though Baudrillard is an avid film fan). The luminous eyes of television and computer screens penetrate into our privates spaces in an ecstatic and obscene way - our secrets disappear, and the images we consume become more and more pornographic.
In the middle of the eighties Baudrillard hit the road. His travelogue America (1986 in French) creates a simulacrum of the America he travelled across. He talks about the violence of the Wild West, jazz, the empty deserts of the South-West, the neon lights of motels at night, tribal warfare between gangs in New York City, and much more. Baudrillard saw America as a glittering emptiness, a savage, empty non-culture, in short, as the purest symbol of the hyperreal culture of the postmodern age.
In his lecture on film given in Sydney, Australia in 1987, The Evil Demon of Images, Baudrillard claims that although the US lost the Vietnam war on the ground, they won it in the hyperreal realm through films like Apocalypse Now and Platoon, which fantastically replay the war not as the story of defeat by a determined enemy, but as that of internal division. Cinematographically, the Americans defeat themselves.
Before the Gulf War of 1991, Baudrillard wrote an article in Libération in which he claimed that the war wouldn't take place. Afterwards, he claimed that it hadn't taken place, for the Western audience was aware of it only as a series of hyperreal images on our TV screens. There was no real enemy - Saddam Hussein was a former US ally in the Middle East - and the outcome was entirely predictable. So despite the horrible loss of life (mostly on the Iraqi side), the war was at best a hyperreal war. Baudrillard's work in the 1990s continued to focus on this theme of the hyperreality of postmodern culture, his writing becoming more disjointed and aphoristic (perhaps echoing Nietzsche's style). He reverses course somewhat in hisshort work The Spirit of Terrorism (2003 revised edition), calling the attack on the Twin Towers "the mother of all events" that the disenfranchised of the world secretly fantasized about. Yet the American military response to 9/11 was yet another pseudo-event, yet another voyage into the (Afghan) desert of the real.
Going back to the beginning of his "postmodern" phase, Baudrillard starts his important essay "The Precession of the Simulacra" by recounting the feat of imperial map-makers in an story by Jorge Luis Borges who make a map so large and detailed that it covers the whole empire, existing in a one-to-one relationship with the territory underlying it. It is a perfect replica of the empire. After a while the map begins to fray and tatter, the citizens of the empire mourning its loss (having long taken the map - the simulacrum of the empire - for the real empire). Under the map the real territory has turned into a desert, a "desert of the real." In its place, a simulacrum of reality - the frayed mega-map - is all that's left.
The term "simulacrum" goes all the way back to Plato, who used it to describe a false copy of something. Baudrillard has built his whole post-1970s theory of media effects and culture around his own notion of the simulacrum. He argues that in a postmodern culture dominated by TV, films, news media, and the Internet, the whole idea of a true or a false copy of something has been destroyed: all we have now are simulations of reality, which aren't any more or less "real" than the reality they simulate.
In our culture, claims Baudrillard, we take "maps" of reality like television, film, etc. as more real than our actual lives - these "simulacra" (hyperreal copies) precede our lives. Our television "friends" (e.g. sit-com characters) might seem more alive to us than their flesh-and-blood equivalents ("did you see what Jerry/Rachel/Frasier did last night?"). We communicate by e-mail, and relate to video game characters like Lara Croft better than our own friends and family. We drive on freeways to shopping malls full of identical chain stores and products, watch television shows about film directors and actors, go to films about television production, vote for ex-Hollywood actors for president (is he really an actor? Or a politician? It doesn't matter). In fact, we get nervous and edgy if we're away too long from our computers, our e-mail accounts, our cell phones. Now the realempire lays in tatters, the hyerreal map still quite intact. We have entered an era where third-order simulacra dominate our lives, where the image has lost any connection to real things.
Baudrillard's later philosophy of culture can be mapped in terms of three things: (1) the orders of simulacra, (2) the "phases of the image" - the four levels at which art represents reality, and (3) the three phases of utopian and science-fiction writing he saw corresponding to these orders and phases. We see how these three sets of distinctions parallel each other in the chart below (I've added what I think are some appropriate examples from popular culture that fit each category):  

Orders of Simulacra	Phases of the Image	Utopias & Science-Fiction
1. Symbolic Order: Society is organized as a fixed system of signs distributed according to rank and obligation (e.g. in the feudal era a peasant couldn't become the King). The question of reality doesn't arise: the meaning of signs is already established in advance (by God or power structures).	1. Art reflects a basic reality (see "Precession of the Simulacra" for an extended discussion). Example: Gothic paintings depict the birth of Jesus as the true son of God, replete with signs of his divinity (the Three Wise Men, a halo over the Madonna's head, etc.).	1. No need for utopian or science-fiction writing: the utopian order already exists in the here and now.
2. First Order of Simulacra: The Early Modern period, from the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution. A competition for the meaning of signs starts. Simulacra aim to restore an ideal image of nature. Fakes and counterfeits enter the scene: baroque angels, concrete chairs, theatre, fashion. But true originals underlie the fakes.	2. Art masks and perverts a basic reality. Example: baroque paintings of an impossibly beautiful Jesus ascending to the heavens like Superman, with the Madonna watching with a blissful look on her face.	2. Utopias: Transcendental or romantic dreams, counterfeit copies of the real world. "If only we got everything right, life would be beautiful!" Thomas More's Utopia. Francis Bacon's New Atlantis.
3. Second Order of Simulacra: From the Industrial Revolution up til the middle of the 20th century. Mass production of copies or replicas of a single prototype: cars, planes, fridges, clothes, books. Liberation of energy through the machine (Marx's world). Copies more or less indistinguishable. Reproduced things aren't counterfeits: they're just as "real" as their prototype (though we can still recognize the prototype).	3. Art masks the absence of a basic reality. Example: photography and the mechanical reproduction of paintings (see Walter Benjamin's important essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"). A framed reproduction of a Renaissance painting of the Madonna hung over one's bed, right beside a velvet image of Elvis.	3. The Classic Science-Fiction of the Age of Mass Production: robots, rocket-ships to Mars, space exploration, alien invasion, intergalactic wars. Present technology projected into the future and outer space. Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Isaac Asimov's I, Robot. Fifties Hollywood sci-fi films (e.g. Them, It Came from Outer Space). The original Star Trek television series. Borges' imperial map.
4. Third Order of Simulacra: The present age - dominated by simulations, things that have no original or prototype (though they may parallel something). Era of the model or code: computers, virtual reality, opinion polls, DNA, genetic engineering, cloning, the news media make the news, Nike sneakers as status symbols, Disneyland. The death of the real: no more counterfeits or prototypes, just simulations of reality - hyperreality. Information replaces the machine as the basic mode of production.	4. Art bears no relation to reality at all. Example: a virtual reality female talking head reads news headlines to us over the Internet. Is she real? A fake? The question has lost its meaning - there is no original to compare her to. Or Madonna (the singer) made up like Marilyn Monroe vamping it up with a troupe of lithe male dancers in a music video on MTV.	4. The End of Science Fiction: the real absorbed into a hyperreal, cybernetic world. Not about an alternative universe, but about a simulation of the present one. Philip K. Dick's Simulacra. J. G. Ballard's Crash. William Gibson's Neuromancer. Ridley Scott's filmBlade Runner. Paul Verhoeven's film Total Recall. David Cronenberg's films Crash and eXistenZ. The Wachowski brothers' The Matrix. The Borg, the holodeck, and VR characters (Voyager's doctor) in the laterStar Trek television series.

Baudrillard's writing is difficult, and for starting philosophers and social and cultural theorists is best taken in small doses. If you read his work, remember that his central claim about postmodern culture (thought he claims that he himself is not a postmodernist) is quite simple - that we live in a "desert of the real," a cultural space where television, film, and computer images are more "real" to us than the non-media physical reality that surrounds us. This loss of reality isn't so hard to understand, even if it's difficult for some of us to swallow.

Exemplar Answer PoMo - look at the Arguments

Postmodernism

The term ‘postmodern’ is one that has caused great debate. Some theorists believe we are in a postmodern era as we speak, some believe it is here but hate the thought and effect it is having on society and some theorists believe there is no such thing and we are just in late modernity. Combined with the fact that there are numerous definitions regarding postmodernism, it really must be questioned what time period we are actually in. However, one thing that cannot be questioned is that times are changing, especially in the media. Many media products are being described as post modern as they push the boundaries of supposed media rules and regulations.

In television for example, the modern age of television saw minimal programs being created, that were ultimately aimed at the cupper class with a Hegemonic structure firmly in place. Furthermore, within the programs there was a clear linear narrative, with a clear hero, stereotypes were used for the characters and the program ended with an optimistic finale. Television in contemporary times appeared to have reacted and rebelled to all that has gone before it.

There is now a pluralism structure in place in which there are numerous channels wit numerous programs available. In modernity, there could have been one drama available, in post-modernity, there are now numerous dramas available all on different channels. Some say that this has resulted in society becoming greedy and more picky yet the ‘Postmodern Audience Theory’ suggests the complete opposite. The theory segregates a possible viewer into three categories. Firstly, there is the theory of mass culture where a viewer will watch a TV program dependent on its success and the following it gets. A good example of this is the teenage drama ‘Glee’ in which the program has received an almighty following from all areas due to its success initially in America. The second part of theory is known as the ‘detracted position’ in which a viewer will watch a TV program, knowing it’s bad, but will watch it to comment how poor it is. This part of the theory most certainly gives the impression of laziness across society today. The final part of this theory is called ‘Routine’. The theory suggests that the audience watch certain programmes because it fits into an individual’s ‘routine’.

This idea of a piece of technology controlling an individual’s activities is one that is deemed extremely postmodern as society within the modernist era and the realism era before that could never have comprehended it as a time where art and religion were important. So although, the continuous improvement in technology is deemed a positive development, the impact it has on our lives ask the question whether technological determinism is taking place? Does an individual’s life’s priority result in technology ***** culture or vice versa. Quite frankly I believe, it the first option as society spirals into a dystopian world, rather like what is being shown on the television, which also varies from the ‘happy’ narratives shown in the modernism era.

One of the problems with this postmodern culture is the feeling that nothing is new anymore. Fredrick Jameson felt that society had lost its connection with ‘hisoricity’. This is proven further in television. To create a post modern text, there are three different things you can do. The first is to adapt a previous text, or you can hybridise two or more texts or use self reflexitivity. The one common denominator within those 3 factors is that nothing is new. Ideas are being taken from past ideas, ig the media reflects society then this could represent that nothing completely new is ever going to be created again, this linking in heavily with the dystopian core that postmodernism brings.

A theorist called Jacques Derida answered a theorist known as the ‘deconstruction Model’ he felt that if a text was deconstructed for the meaning and then you analysed the meaning and then analysed that meaning and so on and so forth, you would reach binary opposites which would suggest the text had no literal meaning at all and therefore no point. An example of this is the tv program ‘Big Brother’. The simplicity of adapting George Orwell’s novel ‘1984’ appeared to be genius. Yet, under scrutinization, it would appear the program is merely spying on 10 – 15 individuals as they undertake sadistic tasks. But what’s the point? We all have our individual lives so why do we need to see other peoples? There is no meaning to the program and this is a program attempting to represent society, does this in turn suggest that society has not meaning and we are merely going through life without any real purpose?

The effect on society from television is quite obviously a postmodern view, hence only why this particular media product is described as postmodern.

In a completely different direction, the world of gaining is also considered to be postmodern. As technology improves and the options to progress increase, games, are becoming more and more interactive and the avatar is becoming more realistic.

There have been recent cases where caretrophes have occurred and the convicted have said they were just ‘re-enacting’ the game. For example, the death of a Male two years ago was a supposed result of the game ‘Gears of War’ coming to life. These types of disasters ask society the question whether it is just a select few who become too involved in the game or is it a gradual process in which we wish we were the person in the game.

Slavij Zizek believed that ‘we experience virtual reality as real reality suggests that the avater is the real us. Due to the lack of law and restrictions that are placed on society, the gaining individual can supposedly be their real selves?

Judith Butler goes on to say that in social situations ‘everyone is acting’ and the concept that people nowadays act out their supposed realselves through technology as opposed to themselves in society is a very dark thought. Again, this links in with postmodernism dystopian tone. Game manufacturers are beginning to pick up on this theme as games like ‘Heavy Rain’ and ‘The Sims’ are introduced. Early games had a clear narrative and structure and they were played until completion. Yet, nowadays, the game has developed into a rhizomic narrative in which the participant can act out daily activities such as feeding a baby or walking the dog before they go and shoot someone or run them down?! Is it possible for individuals in society to become so engrossed in a game that they believe it’s reality as opposed to their real life which juxta poses and becomes their virtual reality? Apparently, in a postmodern world it’s a possibility. The theorist Csikczentmihalyi certainly believes so, he believes there are two types of games and these are categorised into ‘flow vs immersion.’ Flow is a modern view on going where there is a clear structure and although the individual becomes involved and enjoys the challenge, they are able to shut the device of and understand the boundaries between real and virtual.

Immersion talks about games who become so involved in the game, they believe they are the game and they are that character and the actions they are doing is what they would do in society, if they were allowed to. Csikczentmihalyi believes more and more members of society are becoming immerse gamers.

The product of gaming is designed as postmodern as it reacts and rebels against modern times as structure and authority and becomes a device that supposedly allows the person to become who they really are, their own ‘avater’. This was never likely in modernism as no member of society dreamed of growing up and becoming *********!

To conclude, I believe that society are most definitely in a post modern society and this is reflected by the media products and their postmodern outlook. In television and gaming thee are no restrictions anymore and nothing is impossible. Bo-one would have believed that television would become a two way flow nor that an individual could design themselves and act out their ‘real life’ even if that does mean becoming a criminal.

Or Alan Kirby believes, the situation will only get worse as people become totally immersed in technology and will begin to have situations that are unique to the individual and cannot be replayed. It’s a **** result in a global effect of social ineptness and a very negative time ahead.

IT crowd pomo

Postmodern Comedy - IT Crowd

There are a number of cases of the IT Crowd being postmodern. The show's success is largely due to its parodical take on what is widely known as 'Geek culture' - a supposed fragment of today's society. It pays homage to 'geek culture' through its dialogue, setting and props. For instance - Roy is often seen wearing shirts featuring acronyms that reference 'geek culture' such as 'RTFM' and 'OMFG', a number of 'in' references (only appreciated by those who understand the culture) are made and the office it is set in features all types of retro computing props.

Intertextuality is also often used. The DVD menu for Season 1 of the IT Crowd is stylized after isometric adventure games such as Knight Lore and Head Over Heels. The same can be said for the opening title sequence, which is intended to look as though it is computer generated, until it malfunctions and displays that familiar blue screen.
There will also be the occasional skit or scene which can parody melodramatic texts which are usually associated with seriosity.

Anti Pomo

Anti Postmodernism

Post modernism is a theory of a time after postmodernism, therefore, the fact that it is a theory shows that people can have an opinion on it, which this article obvious does. However, no body can actually say that postmodernism is wrong, as its only a theory, someones opinion.

Opposition to Post Modernism:

Formal, academic critiques of postmodernism can be found in works such as Beyond the Hoax and Fashionable Nonsense.

The term postmodernism, when used pejoratively, describes tendencies perceived as relativist, counter-enlightenment or antimodern, particularly in relation to critiques of rationalism, universalism or science. It is also sometimes used to describe tendencies in a society that are held to be antithetical to traditional systems of morality.


Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy, and Culture is a book by Alan Sokal detailing the history of the Sokal affair in which he submitted an article full of "nonsense" to Social Text, a critical theory journal, and was able to get it published.
Beyond the Hoax is Sokal's second book on this topic, the first being the 1997 Fashionable Nonsense, in which Sokal and coauthor Jean Bricmont examine two related topics:

1 ) the allegedly incompetent and pretentious usage of scientific concepts by a small group of influential philosophers and intellectuals;
2) the problems of cognitive relativism, the idea that "modern science is nothing more than a 'myth', a 'narration' or a 'social construction' among many others"[2] as seen in the Strong Programme in the sociology of science.

The Times wrote that “Sokal's essays - and his hoax - achieve their purpose of reminding us all that, in the words of the Victorian mathematician-philosopher William Kingdon Clifford, ‘It is wrong, always, everywhere and for any one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.’” Michael Shermer praised the book as “an essential text” and summarized the argument, writing that:
There is progress in science, and some views really are superior to others, regardless of the color, gender, or country of origin of the scientist holding that view. Despite the fact that scientific data are "theory laden," science is truly different than art, music, religion, and other forms of human expression because it has a self-correcting mechanism built into it. If you don't catch the flaws in your theory, the slant in your bias, or the distortion in your preferences, someone else will, usually with great glee and in a public forum — for example, a competing journal! Scientists may be biased, but science itself, for all its flaws, is still the best system ever devised for understanding how the world works.

The term postmodernism, when used pejoratively, describes tendencies perceived as relativist, counter-enlightenment or antimodern, particularly in relation to critiques of rationalism, universalism or science. It is also sometimes used to describe tendencies in a society that are held to be antithetical to traditional systems of morality.

Habermas' argument has been extended to state that postmodernity is counter-enlightenment. Richard Wolin in his book The Seduction of Unreason argues that key advocates of postmodernity began with a fascination for fascism. The view that Romanticism is a reactionary philosophy and that Nazism was an outgrowth of it is widely held among modernist philosophers and writers, who argue that the cultural particularity and identity politics of postmodernity, the consequence of holding post-structuralist views, is "what Germany had from 1933-1945"[citation needed]. They further argue that postmodernity requires an acceptance of "reactionary" criticisms that amount to anti-Americanism[citation needed].

This debate is seen by philosophers such as Richard Rorty as between modern and postmodern philosophy rather than being related to the condition of postmodernity per se[citation needed]. It also grows out of a common agreement that modernity is rooted in a rationalised set of Enlightenment values.

The range of critiques of the postmodern condition from those who generally accept it is quite broad and impossible to summarise. One criticism levelled at postmodernity from within is expressed by author David Foster Wallace, who argues that the trend towards more and more ironic and referential artistic expression has reached a limit and that a movement back towards "sincerity" is required on which the artist actually speaks with an intended, concrete, static meaning.

Certain criticisms also focus on the fact that postmodernism lacks a coherent rhetorical theory. "Consequently, a theory will always fail to make good on its claim to provide a set of rules independent of the practice it describes; and because a theory will always fail in its goal to guide and reform practice, it therefore, by definition, can have no consequence."



http://www.facebook.com/pages/Anti-Post-Modernism/76813487566
I found this facebook page on Anti-Semitism. Which I found very ironic, as surely facebook is a factor of postmodernism, combining the confusions over time and space, as I am able to talk to my friends abroad, who are at a different time zone from England. Also, Facebook is a good example of the decline of the meta-narrative, as many people would prefer to use the internet than be going to church, for example, following the bible.

I believe that although the article had some good ideas, and statements about why postmodernism we are so past postmodernism, some of the statements were a bit irrational and unreasonable. As no one can say for sure that Postmodernism is true, as it is just a theory, a very broad one to say the least.

I don't believe that this article is accurate, as I believe that some of the theories which theorists, such as Strinati and Baudillard came up with make sence, and can be related to every day life, as well as being linked to media texts of today, such as the film 24 Hour Paty People.

simpsons as a pomo text

The simpsons can be suggested as a postmodern comedy.
There are many reasons for this, which make it undeniably postmodern.

Firstly it follows a non linear narrative, creating confusions over time and space. Every episode is a new start, and ends with a narrative resolution. This is a very postmodern trait, and is quite typical of these sorts of comedy programs, for example Family Guy. They make the audience aware of this when one of the characters claims "ohh don't worry, it'll all be alright by the next episode". This is just one of the example of when the 4th wall is broken in the Simpsons.

In addition to this, a conscious decision has been made not to localise The Simpsons to any distinct region besides America, nor to any one period of time besides the postmodern era… What’s more, the Simpson children never age or progress in school. In 17 years Maggie has not learned to walk or talk, and still uses her dummy. The family are timeless as well as placeless. The Simpsons are nowhere, living at no time, and representing no specific family – but paradoxically they are every family everywhere at any point in the postmodern era.

The decline of the meta-narrative is a frequent theme throughout the entirety of the Simpsons, and they are constantly poking fun at religion, government, and other influential characters. Examples of this are, when Homer gives his soul to the devil for a doughnut, when he is killed by some brocolli and goes to the gates of heaven, and is told he cannot enter until he does a good deed. When he does St peter misses it because he was reading the newspaper. Another example is when homer tries to vote for Obama, but the vote goes to Mcain, suggesting that the votes were rigged. The video is available through the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aBaX9GPSaQ
The video also shows a specially made "Fat Booth" highlighting the rising problem of obesity in the united states, making light of pressing social issues.

The show’s refusal to adhere to the norms of accepted sitcom subject matter is one of its foremost postmodern traits. It is an attitude that corresponds well to postmodernism’s aim to celebrate cultural differences and bring them to the surface. The Simpsons is a testament to the postmodern decentering of contemporary mass consciousness, by embracing diversity of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and socio-economic status.

great blog for po mo

http://tccpomo.blogspot.com/2011/03/postmodernism-criticism.html

Exam Basics

Knowing your texts inside out: 

Make sure you have a good range of texts across at least three different media forms 

Watch them all again. Watch key scenes again, and again, and again

Constantly link them postmodern features or as a reflection on our postmodern society

Discuss the key issues with parents, siblings, pets or anyone who will listen

Organise your notes – condense them down again and again

Create spider grams – texts to theories, theories to texts - like we did in class with the theorists at the centre, create detailed ones for your texts with key examples and links to pomo concepts

Memorise textual detail: examples,quotes and key scenes

Write practice essays

If you give them to me, I will mark them

Set up revision sessions between yourselves