In the aftermath of a global COVID-19 pandemic and amidst the threat of new pandemics, this course presents a unique opportunity to study historical disease outbreaks and what they can teach us about how human beings experience and respond to pandemics. Using case studies such as plague, smallpox, cholera, influenza, and COVID-19, we will explore how diseases work as powerful biological forces that reshape human lives, societies, empires, and the state. As we encounter changes and continuities in human responses to pandemics, we will gain a deeper understanding of the complex history of public health and the challenges facing modern healthcare systems. Reading the work of leading scholars, including Alfred Crosby, Tai S. Edwards, Elizabeth Fenn, Jacalyn Duffy, Monica Green, Pablo Gomez, Paul Kelton, Charles Rosenberg, and John Fabian Witt, we will analyze changing concepts of disease, treatment, and prevention and encounter the development of modern biomedical treatment, prevention, and surveillance methods. From plague to COVID-19, this course demonstrates how disease shapes global events at the intersection of race, gender, disability, and other critical markers of identity.