6,078 articles
Cultural relativism
Cultural relativism (kulturrelativisme) is the anthropological principle that cultures are equally valid and must be understood in their own terms, associated with Boas, Benedict, and Herskovits, distinct from moral relativism, and criticized as self-refuting.
Cultural studies
Cultural studies, or culture studies, is an interdisciplinary field analyzing how power and social relations are structured through culture, originating at the Birmingham Centre in 1964.
Cultural universal
A cultural universal is a cultural pattern found in every known human society. The concept is used in anthropology and related disciplines to investigate similarities across societies despite differences in customs, institutions,.
Culture
Culture: the beliefs, values, practices, and artifacts of a group, transmitted by social learning rather than genes. Also called enculturation; studied via cultural relativism (Boas, Benedict) and evolutionary models; over 150 definitions exist.
Culture jamming
Culture jamming: anti-consumerist activist art that subverts ads and corporate messages via subvertising, détournement, and pranks; linked to Negativland, the BLF, BUGA UP, and Adbusters.
Culture of Japan
Culture of Japan: heritage institutions, World Heritage and intangible heritage, UNESCO cooperation, and the Nihonjinron uniqueness discourse. 27 World Heritage sites, 23 ICH elements, 1950 cultural properties law.
Culture shock
Culture shock: anxiety and distress from losing familiar cultural cues when living in a different culture. Coined by Oberg (1960), staged honeymoon through adjustment, with U-curve, W-curve, and acculturation research.
Cumans
Cumans: Turkic nomads of the Eurasian steppe (11th–13th centuries), also called Kipchaks, Polovtsians, or Qipčaq; stateless confederacy of khan-led groups from the Danube to the Irtysh, defeated by the Mongols in 1241.
Cunnilingus
Cunnilingus is oral sex performed on a woman's vulva, clitoris, or vagina; also called going down on someone. Distinguished from fellatio and anilingus; carries STI risk but little to no HIV risk.
Curiosity
Curiosity (psychology): the desire for new information aroused by novelty, complexity, or uncertainty; studied as state and trait, epistemic and perceptual forms, with information-gap theory, five-dimensional trait scales, and links to learning, personality, and exploration.
Curse of knowledge
Curse of knowledge: cognitive bias, coined by Camerer, Loewenstein, and Weber (1989), in which knowing something makes it hard to imagine not knowing it, biasing estimates of what others know; replication record mixed.
Cute aggression
Cute aggression, also called cuteness aggression, is the urge to squeeze, pinch, or bite extremely cute things without intent to harm, studied as a dimorphous emotion-regulation response first formalized by Aragón et al. in 2015.
Cyberball task
Cyberball is a computerized ball-tossing game used in social psychology to manipulate social inclusion and ostracism, reported by Kipling Williams and colleagues in 2000 and now a standard induction of social exclusion in experimental research.
Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying, or online bullying, is repeated harmful behavior using digital technologies on social media, messaging, and gaming platforms. Distinguished from traditional bullying by reach, persistence, and digital evidence; prevalence estimates vary widely with measurement.
Cybernetic Culture Research Unit
Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU): experimental collective founded 1995 at Warwick University's philosophy department by Nick Land and Sadie Plant; coined hyperstition, fictions that make themselves real; dissolved circa 2003; fed accelerationism and theory-fiction.
Cybersex
Cybersex, also called Internet sex or online sex, is real-time sexual interaction between two or more people via computer-mediated technologies, a subcategory of online sexual activity. Distinct from passive pornography viewing and from offline sexual activity, it spans typed erotic chat, video exchange, and immersive tech, with research focused on both relationship uses and problematic use.
Cynicism (contemporary)
Contemporary cynicism is the attitude that people act mainly from self-interest, an inversion of ancient Cynic philosophy; studied in organizational, political, and media forms, with measured income and health costs.
Cypherpunk
A cypherpunk is a member of a digital privacy movement, centered on a mailing list founded in 1992, that advocates strong encryption and later influenced Bitcoin and WikiLeaks.
Czech National Revival
The Czech National Revival (Czech: národní obrození) was a cultural movement, roughly from the 1770s to the 1840s or 1850s, in which the modern Czech nation formed within the Habsburg monarchy.
Czechoslovak–Hungarian population exchange
The Hungarian–Slovak population exchange was a bilateral agreement signed in February 1946 under which Czechoslovakia transferred about 77,000 Hungarians to Hungary in return for roughly 60,000 Slovak volunteers.
Czechs
Czechs (Češi) are a West Slavic nation of Bohemia and Moravia speaking Czech, about 12 million speakers; statehood from Přemyslid Bohemia through 1918 Czechoslovakia to the 1993 Czech Republic.
Dacha
Dacha (дача): seasonal second home with garden plot used by urban Russians and post-Soviet city dwellers; from tsarist land grants through Soviet 600 m² garden plots to post-Soviet suburban homes.
Dad bod
Dad bod (also dadbod) is a slang term for a soft, mildly muscular male physique with a belly, coined in Mackenzie Pearson's viral 2015 Clemson blog post, later studied as a masculinity phenomenon and added to Merriam-Webster in 2025.
Dagomba people
Dagomba (Dagbamba): ethnic group of northern Ghana in the traditional kingdom of Dagbon, speaking Dagbani, a Gur language. Patrilineal clans, Ya-Na paramount chief, predominantly Muslim, farming livelihoods, fifteenth-century kingdom.
Dai people
Dai people (傣族, Daizu): Tai-speaking ethnic minority of southern and southwestern Yunnan, China, named "Dai" by the state in 1951; about one-quarter live in Xishuangbanna, follow Theravada Buddhism blended with animism, and celebrate the water-splashing New Year.
Daisy Bates (activist)
Daisy Lee Gatson Bates (1914–1999), Arkansas civil rights leader, NAACP state president, and co-publisher of the Arkansas State Press, mentored the Little Rock Nine during the 1957 Central High desegregation crisis; honored with a Capitol statue and Daisy Gatson Bates Day.
Daisy Fellowes
Daisy Fellowes (1890-1962), born Marguerite Séverine Philippine Decazes de Glücksberg, was a French heiress, fashion icon, editor, and novelist, wife of Hon. Reginald Fellowes, known for Cartier Art Deco commissions and her novel Sundays.
Daisy McLaurin Stevens
Daisy McLaurin Stevens (1875-1950), Mississippi socialite, daughter of Governor-Senator Anselm J. McLaurin, was president general of the United Daughters of the Confederacy 1913-1915 and presented the Arlington Confederate Monument to President Wilson in 1914.
Dakar–Niger Railway strike
The Dakar–Niger Railway strike, led by Ibrahima Sarr, was a five-month strike by some 20,000 African railway workers across French West Africa that ended in victory in March 1948.
Dakota people
Dakota people, an 'ally'-named Native American people of the Oceti Sakowin (Sioux) centered on Mni Sota/Minnesota; four Santee bands, 1851 cession of 24 million acres, 1862 war and Mankato hangings, four Minnesota nations today.