Civitas is an interdisciplinary collection of essays on the meaning of the city as human artifact, repository of memory, and the image either of heaven or hell. Drawing on scholars of Bible, theology, worship, literature, and the visual arts, the collection traces religious notions of the city from biblical times to the present. This work is especially suitable for courses on the city, whether those courses be sponsored by departments of religious studies, literature, sociology, or history.

Peter S. Hawkins is Professor of Religion and Literature at Yale Divinity School. His work has centered on Dante, but he has also written widely on the history of biblical reception and on contemporary fiction. He is the author of numerous books, including Dante's Testaments: Essays on Scriptural Imagination, Dante, a Brief History, and Undiscovered Country: Imagining the World to Come.