ERIE, Pa. — There’s nothing taboo about tattoos. Not anymore.

On some level, we have Margot Mifflin to thank for that. In 1997, she released “Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo,” which remains the only book to chronicle the history of both tattooed women and female tattoo artists.

On Thursday, March 24, Mifflin will discuss her book and the evolution of women tattooing when she visits Penn State Behrend for a special presentation. Her talk, “Bodies of Subversion: A Conversation with Margot Mifflin,” will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Reed Auditorium and is free and open to the public.

During the presentation, Mifflin will discuss women’s changing social attitudes toward tattooing, the rise of therapeutic tattoos for breast cancer survivors, tattoo as performance art, the impact of reality television and more.

Mifflin is a professor in the English Department of Lehman College of the City University of New York (CUNY), where she co-directs the arts and culture program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. “Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo,” has since been revised and rereleased on two occasions and remains extremely relevant today as tattooed women outnumber men for the first time in American history.

Mifflin is also the author of “The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman” and has had work published in The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Elle, ARTnews, Salon.com, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Believer, The New Yorker, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Bookforum and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Her visit is sponsored by the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Penn State Behrend and is part of the campus' ninth annual Sexuality and Gender Studies Conference. For additional information, contact Sarah Whitney, lecturer in English and women’s studies, at 814-898-6325 or sew17@psu.edu.