He is a Reader Emeritus in English and Humanities at Birkbeck College, University of London, with research and teaching interests in critical and cultural theory as well as postcolonial literature, including African literature, Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe being notable subjects of his writing.
[2][3] He is a former council member of the Royal African Society and serves on the advisory board of the Caine Prize.
[4] He has written many conference papers and journal articles, as well as books, among which are works on Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe.
His 2007 publication Postcolonial Identity in Wole Soyinka is described as "a major and imaginative contribution to the study of Wole Soyinka, African literature, and postcolonial cultural theory and one in which writing and creativity stand in fruitful symbiosis with the critical sense.
"[5] According to a review by Kate Haines: "Mpalive-Hangson Msiska compellingly reads Soyinka's creative and critical work in dialogue with cultural studies, using this to highlight the important contribution African critics and writers have made to the ways in which power is read and understood today.