Felix Maxwell Keesing was born 5 January 1902 in Taiping (Penang), Straits Settlements, British Malay. He attended University of New Zealand, graduating with his BA in 1924, and his M.A. in 1925. He later attended the Yale University (1928/29) and the University of Chicago (1929/30). He received his Doctor of Letters (D Litt.) from the University of New Zealand in 1933 and studied the following year at the London School of Economics and Political Science. That summer, Keesing taught summer school at the University of Hawai‘i, remaining as a member of the Department of Anthropology. According to the article in Ka Lei O Hawai'i in March 1934 indicating the Keesing was to be on the summer school faculty, Keesing had served as the director of research in the Pacific dependencies for the Institute of Pacific Relations.

During his stay at the University of Hawai‘i Dr. Keesing became department chair for the combined department of Anthropology and Sociology. It appears from the catalogs of courses for 1937/38 and for 1938/1939, that the departments merged effective fall semester 1937. Keesing was listed by the catalogs as chair of the department, 1939/40 and 1940/41. In 1941/42, Keesing is listed as the only full professor in the combined department, with Dr. Andrew Lind as department chair. The following year, Dr. Keesing is not listed as faculty.

In 1942, Dr. Keesing left the University of Hawai‘i for the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, D.C., and became a teaching associate at the Columbia University Naval School of Military Government and Administration. He became a professor at Stanford University in 1943. In 1948, President Truman appointed him as the senior United States commissioner on the Commission on the South Pacific, where he served until 1957. While still active on the faculty of Stanford University, Dr. Keesing died of a heart attack on 22 April 1961.