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Pizza has a long history in Italy, where for centuries it was a simple dish held in disregard by all but the humble and poor. Pizza gained popularity among the Italian immigrants in the United States, taking on the qualities that we have come to associate with the modern pizza pie. However, as Stephen Jenkins (2002) noted:
Pizza-loving American tourists, going to Italy in the millions, sought out authentic Italian pizza. Italians, responding to this demand, developed pizzerias to meet American expectations. Delighted with their discovery of “authentic” Italian pizza, Americans subsequently developed chains of “authentic” Italian brick-oven pizzerias. Hence, Americans met their own reflection in the other and were delighted.
(p. 81)
This hermeneutic feedback loop has been dubbed the “pizza effect” and used by religious studies scholars, like Jenkins, to depict the ways in which the subjective assumptions, or scholarly gaze, of the scholar-other can have a profound effect on that which is studied. Just as the British invaded, colonized, and exploited the land and people of India, Western scholars have a long history of academic imperialism in Asian countries, a trend that has inextricably changed the way the people view themselves and their cultural practices, a kind of massive cultural projective identification. This mode of scholarship has been effectively deconstructed by a multitude of academic disciplines, and sensitivity to the powerful impact of Western scholarship is now standard practice in academic fields involved in cultural studies. However, many authors, despite efforts toward sensitivity, continue to produce works that fail to capture the specificity and nuance necessary for an equitable dialogue.
Christopher Bollas's (2013) China on the Mind has re-opened a conversation with Eastern thought that has been engaged by only a handful of