• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Features
  • Campus News
  • CSUDH.edu
  • Contact
  • People
    • Staff Spotlight
    • Faculty Highlights
    • Alumni
  • Magazine
  • For Journalists
    • CSUDH In The News
    • Press Releases
    • Facts and Figures
    • Find Media Experts
    • Gallery

CSUDH News

The primary source of news and information about California State University, Dominguez Hills, its students, faculty, and staff.

You are here: Home / Archive / Features / CSU Lecturers Bring Pedagogy to Podcasting with Las Doctoras

CSU Lecturers Bring Pedagogy to Podcasting with Las Doctoras

April 13, 2021

Cristina Rose (Smith) and Renee Lemus, founders and hosts of the podcast Las Doctoras.
Cristina Rose (Smith) and Renee Lemus, founders and hosts of the podcast Las Doctoras.

In the opening lines of their Las Doctoras podcast, Cristina Rose (Smith) and Renee Lemus invite listeners to join them at their kitchen table to question systems of power, sip on some tequila, and change the world.

It’s a premise rooted in the duo’s shared mission: to demystify academic discourse by taking it beyond the classroom, and into public spaces.

By chance, Rose and Lemus had met and hit it off at their children’s playgroup, where they discovered their mutual academic and personal backgrounds. Not only did they hail from the same area of Los Angeles and share similar family experiences, but they also both taught within the CSU system. Rose is a lecturer of Women’s Studies at CSUDH, while Lemus teaches Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at CSULA and History at Los Angeles Harbor College.

As their friendship grew and conversations deepened, they realized they also shared the desire to carve out creative space for themselves outside of traditional academia. That’s when Rose suggested a podcast.

“We work and communicate so well together,” Rose said. “We wanted to tap into the conversations we have at the university, and create this free, accessible platform for our community.”

The podcast, Las Doctoras, debuted in 2018. Topics are wide-ranging, from body politics and gender to parenting, social justice, race, and spirituality. Though Rose and Lemus discuss everything through an academic lens of decolonization and feminism, the chats are often informal and deeply personal.

“The joy, friendliness, and conversational way we raise issues deconstructs the fear that people have of the university,” Rose said.

“Our podcast gives us freedom to talk the way we talk over lunch,” Lemus added. “It was really just a matter of turning on the mic.”

Las Doctoras quickly started making waves. Less than a year after the premiere episode, Oprah’s Winfrey’s website, Oprah Daily, included the show on its list of “Best Spanish and Latino Podcasts.” Overnight, the podcast gained hundreds more listeners and national visibility.

“We were being compared to these podcasters that we idealize,” Rose said. “On a basic level, it said to us, ‘keep up the good work,’ but it also called us to be even more intentional.”

With three seasons of Las Doctoras under their belts, the pair have expanded their reach even further. In 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, they began a book club in order to foster an online community of support and camaraderie.

“We talk about dismantling these systems of oppression, but we’re looking for our own healing,” Lemus said. “The book club has done that in a way we couldn’t have imagined. Especially in a time where it felt like the world was literally falling apart, it kept us together.”

Apart from their podcast and book club, the pair also offer writing courses and recently announced the launch of a new online magazine, Saint Lunita, in which they will showcase creative works from within their communities. With every project and platform, Rose and Lemus hope to connect with others and create spaces for expression.

“We are meeting the need for catharsis,” Rose said. “We’ve been trying to reach different people and expand our modalities. It will be interesting to see where we grow.”

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: Faculty, Students

Recent Features

Lukas Daniels

Anthropology Graduate Brings Personal Perspective to Research

May 20, 2022

The CSUDH Class of 2022 has had many obstacles to overcome to reach graduation—and graduating senior Lukas Daniels (BA, Anthropology) is no different. He transferred from El Camino College to CSUDH in the spring of 2020, just in time for the campus to “go virtual” due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As he and his fellow ... Read More

Kroener and Bretado making Toro hand signal

Aspiring Prosthetist Grads Specialize in Empathy

May 19, 2022

For Martha Bretado and Rachel Kroener, the field of prosthetics is about much more than creating new artificial limbs for patients. As people who have physical disabilities themselves, the two students understand the importance of fostering community with their patients, building up their confidence, and showing them ... Read More

CSUDH Mental Health Resources Expand and Adapt

CSUDH Mental Health Resources Expand and Adapt

May 11, 2022

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic and its ensuing hardships, college students were not immune to the nation’s widespread rise in mental health issues. Studies from the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI) found that pre-COVID, one in four young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 had a diagnosable mental ... Read More

... see all Featured Stories

Footer

California State University, Dominguez Hills Logo

1000 E. Victoria Street, Carson, CA 90747
1-310-243-2001 • Send Email

Related Sites

  • csudh.edu
  • magazine.csudh.edu
  • gotoros.com

EMAIL NEWSLETTER

Get CSUDH News directly in your inbox

Copyright © 2022 · California State University, Dominguez Hills