BA, MA, PhD

Dr Agaiby received a Ph.D. from Macquarie University, Sydney Australia, and from the University of Göttingen, Germany. Her areas of interest include Early Monasticism, Hagiography, Manuscript Studies, and Christian-Arabic Studies.

Her latest publications include: with Lillian Larsen, Arsenius Mikhail and Tamara Siuda, Coptic Studies from Egypt to Los Angeles. Essays in Honor of Hany N. Takla (Brill, 2026); with Charbel El-Khaissi & Godwin Mushayabasa, In the Shadow of the Author: Contemporary Approaches in Translation, Lexicography and Linguistic Analysis (Gorgias Press, 2025); First in the Desert: St. Paul the Hermit in Text and Tradition (Brill, 2024); with Tim Vivian, Door of the Wilderness: The Greek, Coptic, and Copto-Arabic Sayings of St. Antony of Egypt (Brill, 2021); with Mark N. Swanson, and Nelly Van Doorn-Harder, Copts in Modernity (Brill, 2021); and The Arabic Life of Antony attributed to Serapion of Thmuis. Cultural Memory Reinterpreted (Brill, 2018).

Books

Agaiby, Lisa, Lillian Larsen, Arsenius Mikhail, and Tamara Siuda ed. (2026, Jan), Coptic Studies from Egypt to Los Angeles. Essays in Honor of Hany N. Takla, Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity (40). (Leiden and Boston: Brill). ISBN: 978-90-04-74469-1.

Agaiby, Lisa, Charbel El-Khaissi & Godwin Mushayabasa ed. (2025, June), In the Shadow of the Author: Contemporary Approaches in Translation, Lexicography and Linguistic Analysis , Perspectives on Linguistics and Ancient Languages (17). (New Jersey: Gorgias Press). ISBN: 978-1-4632-4818-5.

Agaiby, Lisa ed. (2024, Nov.) First in the Desert: St. Paul the Hermit in Text and Tradition, Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity (36). (Leiden & Boston: Brill). ISBN: 978-90-04-70221-9.

Agaiby, Lisa and Tim Vivian (2021, Nov.) Door of the Wilderness: The Greek, Coptic, and Copto-Arabic Sayings of St. Antony of Egypt, Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity (23). (Leiden & Boston: Brill). ISBN: 978-90-04-47186-3.

Agaiby, Lisa, Mark N. Swanson, and Nelly Van Doorn-Harder eds. (2021). The Proceedings of St Athanasius College’s International Symposium of Coptic Studies: “Copts in Modernity” 13 to 16 July 2018, Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity (22). (Leiden & Boston: Brill). 472pp. ISBN: 978-90-04-44657-1.

Agaiby, Elizabeth (Lisa) (2018) The Arabic Life of Antony attributed to Serapion of Thmuis. Cultural Memory Reinterpreted, Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity (14). (Leiden & Boston: Brill). 279pp. ISBN 978-90-04-38327-2.

Selected peer-reviewed journal articles/book chapters

(2023) “A Wonder that was Performed by Our Holy Father the Archimandrite Anbā Shinūdah, by the Hand of Our Father the Patriarch Anbā Mattāʾūs.” In: Pharaonen, Mönche und Gelehrte: Auf dem Pilgerweg durch 5000 Jahre ägyptische Geschichte über drei Kontinente. Heike Behlmer zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Diliana Atanassova, Frank Feder and Heike Sternberg el-Hotabi (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag), pp. 1-13. ISBN 978-3-447-12066-1.

(2021) “Copto-Arabic Sayings Attributed to St Antony the Great.” In: Studia Patristica. Vol. CXXIV – Papers presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2019. Volume 21: Hagiographica; Ascetica; Martyria (124), ed. Markus Vincent (Leuven: Peeters), pp. 67-74. ISBN 9789042947764.

(2021) “The Cenotaph in the Cave Church of St. Paul the Hermit.” In: Copts in Modernity. Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity (22), eds. Lisa Agaiby, Mark N. Swanson, Nelly van Doorn Harder (Leiden & Boston: Brill), pp. 321-356. ISBN 978-90-04-44657-1.

(2020) “Synopsis of the Arabic Pseudo-Serapionic Life of Antony.” In: Christianity and Monasticism in Alexandria and the Egyptian Deserts, eds. Hany N. Takla and Gawdat Gabra (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press), pp. 1-11. ISBN 9774169611.

(2019) “Shenoute the Archimandrite in Manuscripts at the Red Sea Monasteries.” Coptica (Los Angeles: St Shenouda Society for Coptic Studies), pp. 1-16. ISSN 1541-163X.

(2018) “A Codicological Overview of MS St Paul Monastery (History) 53.” Bulletin de la Société d’Archéologie Copte, 57 (Cairo: Société d’Archéologie Copte), pp. 11-31. ISSN 0005-948X.

(2018) “Manuscripts Containing the Life of Antony in Arabic.” Parole de l’Orient (Jounieh, Lebanon: Faculté Pontificale de Théologie de l’Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik), pp. 15-35. ISSN 0258-8331.