Feest was professor of the ethnology of indigenous America at the Frobenius Institute at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main from 1993 to 2004. From 2004 to 2010 he returned to the Museum of Ethnology, Vienna as director.
Feest was a professor of ethnology of indigenous America at the Frobenius Institute at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main from 1993 to 2004 and then returned to the Museum of Ethnology, Vienna as director from 2004 to 2010.