The following two pieces inaugurate a new feature in The Journal of African History, the JAH Forum. The aim of this feature is to spark wide-ranging discussion and debate within the journal, and to encourage deeper reflection on significant trends and cutting-edge developments in various subfields of African history. Each Forum will consist of two or more essays on a topic of broad interest within African history and beyond. When inviting contributions, JAH editors ask authors to discuss the proposed topic from their own unique perspectives while providing some assessment of existing scholarship – both historical and interdisciplinary – as well as some suggestions about where future studies might or should be heading. For this first JAH Forum on Health and Illness, we also asked James L. A. Webb and Tamara Giles-Vernick, Ch. Didier Gondola, Guillaume Lachenal, and William H. Schneider to consider the question of how the AIDS epidemic and the recent emergence of global health as the site of expansive institutional activity have shaped the development of this subfield of African history. We are proud to publish their responses here and to launch this new JAH feature.