The turn of the sixteenth century was a time when the rapid expansion of print media forged communities of readers eager to learn about the epidemics of the day, such as the plague, syphilis, and the English Sweating Sickness. Not unlike today, anxieties about the rapid spread of diseases coincided with anxieties about the rapid spread of harmful information.

Christopher Hutchinson (University of Mississippi) and Helmut Puff (University of Michigan) will engage in a one hour conversation about the nexus of epidemics and media (c. 1500).