Mifflin is best known for Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo, a seminal study of the implicit politics of tattooed women and female tattooists. In a review published in Women's Art Journal, the feminist cultural critic Claudia Springer quotes Mifflin's assertion, in Bodies of Subversion, that "positioned against the shifting social backdrop of Western culture in the last century, tattoos serve as touchstones for women's changing roles and evolving concerns during the most progressive era in women's history, and as visual passkeys to the psyches of women who are rewriting accepted notions of feminine beauty and self-expression."
In The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman, Mifflin's 2009 contribution to the subgenre of American historical studies known as the pioneer captivity narrative, she recounts the slaughter of Oatman's family by marauding Yavapai Indians near the Gila River in Arizona, Oatman's abduction, and her subsequent assimilation into Mohave tribal culture---so much so that she consented to the chin tattoo that was a traditional signifier of femininity, among the Mohave. Mifflin considers Oatman's transformation from Mormon pioneer girl into what the Victorians melodramatically called a "white savage," analyzing the significance of her years among the Mohave and ultimate return to white society in light of Victorian gender politics.
In The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman, Mifflin's 2009 contribution to the subgenre of American historical studies known as the pioneer captivity narrative, she recounts the slaughter of Oatman's family by marauding Yavapai Indians near the Gila River in Arizona, Oatman's abduction, and her subsequent assimilation into Mohave tribal culture---so much so that she consented to the chin tattoo that was a traditional signifier of femininity, among the Mohave. Mifflin considers Oatman's transformation from Mormon pioneer girl into what the Victorians melodramatically called a "white savage," analyzing the significance of her years among the Mohave and ultimate return to white society in light of Victorian gender politics.
