Pizza effect

Uncommon card · No. 111977

In religious studies and sociology, the pizza effect is the phenomenon of elements of a nation's or people's culture being transformed or at least more fully embraced elsewhere, then re-exported to their culture of origin, or the way in which a community's self-understanding is influenced by (or imposed by, or imported from) foreign sources. Related phrases include "hermeneutical feedback loop", "re-enculturation", and "self-orientalization". The term "pizza effect" was coined by the Austrian-born Hindu monk and professor of Anthropology at Syracuse University, Agehananda Bharati, who wrote the following in 1970, based on his analysis of this phenomenon. The original pizza was a simple, hot-baked bread without any trimmings, the staple of the Calabrian and Sicilian contadini ["peasant-farmers"] from whom well over 90% of all Italo-Americans descend. After World War I, a highly elaborated dish, the U.S. pizza of many sizes, flavors, and hues, made its way back to Italy with visiting kinsfolk...

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